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US Drops Charges Against Guantanamo Muslim Chaplain
The U.S. military on Friday dropped all criminal charges against Muslim Army chaplain Capt. James Yee, who ministered to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, marking the final collapse of the espionage case against him. Miami-based U.S. Southern Command said the Army abandoned charges of mishandling classified information, as well as lesser charges of adultery and storing pornographic material on a government computer, stemming from Yeeâs work at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In all, the military had brought six counts against Yee. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the prison facility at Guantanamo where the United States houses about 610 foreign terrorism suspects, dismissed the charges, citing national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence, Southern Command said in a statement. "They collapsed. Chaplain Yee has won his case," Yeeâs civilian lawyer, Eugene Fidell, told Reuters. "This represents a long overdue vindication. In our view, heâs entitled to an apology and weâll be looking forward to receiving one." Asked if Yee would get an apology, Col. Bill Costello, a Southern Command spokesman, said, " Yee, 36, was arrested on Sept. 10, 2003, at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida as he arrived back in the United States from Guantanamo, and military authorities accused him in a court document of spying, mutiny, sedition, aiding the enemy and espionage. But even as Yee spent 76 days in a Navy brig in South Carolina -- much of it in leg irons and handcuffs -- the Army never brought espionage-related charges against him. Yee, who also uses the first name Yousef, is a 1990 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. Raised a Lutheran in New Jersey, the Chinese American converted to Islam while in the Army at about the same time he served in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War. Southern Command said Yee will face nonjudicial proceedings on the allegations relating to adultery and storing pornography in a step that does not involve criminal charges. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-03-20 |
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