A group of Icelandic MPs have called for Wikileaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the second time in two years, and have been joined by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs)

All three MPs from Iceland’s The Movement party and the Swedish Pirate Party’s two MEPs wrote to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo, Norway, to urge them to award Manning the prize.

They were joined in this call by Slim Amamou, a former Tunisian Secretary of State for Sport and Youth.

The Movement made a similar call in February last year but this year enlisted the support of the Swedish MEPs to bolster their case.

‘Dear Norwegian Nobel Committee, we have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize,’ the MPs wrote.

‘According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all US troops from the occupation in Iraq.

‘The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations … have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about the overseas engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistle-blower for shedding light on these issues, and so we urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistle-blower Bradley Manning.’

Manning recently pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges leveled at him by the Obama Administration, reading out a 35 page statement in which he said his actions were motivated by the need for US citizens to understand ‘the full cost of war.’

'We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions,' manning said in court.

'I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general [that] might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.'

Manning has spent over 1,000 days in custody.

Manning, who is gay, served with the United States Army under the then policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.