Pfc. Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier accused in the biggest leak of intelligence documents in the military’s history, was formally charged Thursday.

Aiding the enemy is a capital offense, but prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. If convicted on all the charges, Manning will likely face life in prison. The 24-year-old is suspected of giving hundreds of thousands of secret documents to the WikiLeaks website.He was arraigned Thursday at Fort Meade, Maryland, before military judge Col. Denise Lind, marking the beginning of the court-martial process.

Manning, who sat in his dress uniform with his hands clasped throughout the arraignment, deferred pleading guilty or not guilty to the charges until a later date. He can enter a plea any time before the start of the trial.

The charges against him include aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defense information and theft of public property or records.

Manning’s counsel also deferred choosing how the case will be tried. In a military court-martial, there are three options from which the defendant can choose – trial by a military judge, trial by a panel of senior officers or trial by a panel that includes one-third of enlisted noncommissioned officers.

WikiLeaks, the international online group that publishes secret government documents it receives from outside sources, set off a firestorm a year and a half ago when it made public U.S. diplomatic cables and other sensitive documents, most of them pertaining to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The disclosure of hundreds of the documents continues to cast a shadow over the U.S. intelligence community.

READ MORE: CNN