NEW YORK: Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former US Congressman, estranged husband of one of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides and former candidate for New York mayor pleaded guilty on Friday to sexting a school girl.

Wife Huma Abedin announced their separation last August after The New York Post published sexually suggestive photographs that he shared with a woman while his four-year-son apparently slept nearby.

The 52-year-old Weiner, wearing a dark suit and tie, broke down repeatedly — sobbing, sniffing and wiping his brow — while reading out a statement attesting to his guilt in a Manhattan federal court.

Weiner, once a rising talent in the Democratic Party, admitted to sending explicit photographs and messages to a 15-year-old high school girl last year as his wife worked on Clinton’s presidential campaign.

He surrendered to the FBI on Friday morning and was released on bail after agreeing to turn in his passport, limit his travel to New York and continue mental health treatment.

“I am guilty your honour,” he said. Speaking through tears, his voice cracking and his words at times inaudible, he apologised to all those he had hurt and for the “great devastation to family and friends.”

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2017