FORT MEADE, Md. — Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is facing up to 90 years in prison for leaking 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks, apologized Wednesday for the “unintended consequences of my actions.” He told the judge at his court-martial trial that while he “believed it was going to help people, not hurt people,” he now realized that what he had done was wrong.

“I’m sorry that my actions hurt people,” he said. “I’m sorry that they hurt the United States. At the time of my decision, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continue to affect me” — a reference to matters like his crisis over his gender identity, which he was confronting while on a military deployment in a combat zone.

Throughout the case, open-government activists have celebrated Manning’s leaking as a heroic act to be admired and emulated even as his critics have denounced him as a traitor. And earlier in his court martial, Manning’s defense lawyer, David Coombs, portrayed his client as a whistle-blower, even if a naive one. But in the sentencing phase this week, Coombs has elicited testimony that depicted his client as a smaller, sadder figure — a damaged and confused young man whose decision-making capacity when he decided to leak the files was impaired by extraordinary stresses.

In his statement, Manning said these personal issues did not justify the things he did.

“Although a considerable difficulty in my life,” he said, “these issues are not an excuse for my actions. I understood what I was doing and the decisions I made. However, I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions. Those factors are clear to me now.”

Manning’s brief, three-minute statement to the judge, Col. Denise Lind, was not sworn, so prosecutors could not cross-examine him.

For much of the day, the defense sought to portray Manning in human terms, from a difficult childhood — starting with his mother’s heavy drinking while she was pregnant with him — to his mental and emotional deterioration while in Iraq.

Under questioning from Coombs, Capt. David Moulton, a clinical psychiatrist who extensively examined his client after his arrest, described the stress and isolation that Manning was under, and framed his release of the documents to WikiLeaks as the immature, even neurotic act, of an idealist who thought he could end all wars.