U.S. hacker, who led to WikiLeaks whistleblower Manning's arrest, dies

The circumstances of Lamo's death are unknown, but a coroner in Sedgwick County, Kansas, reportedly confirmed the news.

The BBC reports he called hacker Adrian Lamo, who has died at age 37, a "petty conman and betrayer of basic human decency".

He later became known for turning in transgender former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning to the government after she confided in him that she had stolen classified documents and turned them over to Julian Assange's Wikileaks.

The Colombian-American hacker first rose to notoriety in the early-2000s by hacking into systems at The New York Times, Microsoft, and Yahoo, which he was subsequently convicted for.

But he became infamous for his part in the prosecution of Manning, a former USA army intelligence analyst who had befriended Lamo.

Lamo's father, Mario, announced the news Friday on Facebook.

"With great sadness and a broken heart I have to let know all of Adrian's friends and acquaintances that he is dead". "A bright mind and compassionate soul is gone, he was my beloved son".

Manning had revealed to Lamo that she was the source of the leak in a web chat. Lamo said he acted out of a sense of "duty", but later expressed some regret for the decision, although he stood by it in later interviews.

'I think about (her) every day.

"There was no option to interdict just the documents and put him merely in touch with counseling".

The bad blood traces back to Lamo's central role in the downfall of Chelsea Manning, who told Lamo of the military material she had secretly passed on to WikiLeaks. President Barack Obama commuted the sentence and she was released past year.