Update on Army Captain, Chaplain Yee: Army releases Muslim cleric, drops suspicion of espionage
Nov. 26, 2003, Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - A Muslim chaplain who was suspected of espionage at the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay was released Tuesday (11-25-03).
Army Capt. James Yousef Yee, 35, spent 76 days in confinement, some of that in maximum security, but in the end, the charges against him were far less serious -- including adultery, conduct unbecoming an officer, failure to obey an order and making a false official statement. The new charges include making a false statement, storing pornography on a government computer and having sexual relations outside marriage, which violates military law.
The adultery allegedly occurred with an unspecified woman at Guantánamo and in Orlando, Fla., between July and September 2003, and the pornography was on his government-issued computer at the base in eastern Cuba, according to Raul Duany, a press officer for the U.S. Southern Command.
Yee, who is married and has two children, was released from the Navy brig at Charleston, S.C., one day after his attorney wrote President Bush that the chaplain's confinement was not warranted by the charges.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison facility at Guantánamo, decided that Yee ``presented no flight risk'' and ordered him to report to Fort Benning, Ga., said Southern Command press officer Christopher Sherwood.
Yee will be ``assigned to the chief chaplain there to perform whatever the chief chaplain wants him to do,'' said Tom Crosson, another press officer at Southern Command.