Army Chaplain

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Anyone have comments about this? I think the Army fell a little short in building a case.


Associated Press
February 17, 2004


WASHINGTON - James Yee, a Muslim chaplain in the Army, spent 76 days in a prison cell while authorities tried to build a capital espionage case against him. Now he is free, the most serious allegations replaced by lesser ones like adultery and possession of pornography, and the military justice system itself is on trial.

Yee is due to appear Wednesday in front of a military judge in Fort Benning, Ga., for his preliminary hearing. Originally scheduled for Dec. 2, the hearing has been postponed four times - for a total of 78 days - so the Army can review classified documents in the case.

Both sides say it's possible his preliminary hearing could be delayed again.

Prosecutors aren't saying much publicly about this case, but it's apparent they are no longer pursuing charges of spying, which could carry the death penalty. Initial reports had said Yee was a target of an espionage probe at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he ministered to suspected terrorists.

"Is this guy Jack the Ripper or is he not?" asked Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps judge advocate and current adjunct law professor at Georgetown University. "You have to appreciate that at the outset they thought they were onto something very serious, but they don't seem to be able to accept the evidence that in fact this was just a garden-variety screw-up."

The only formal charges against Yee, a captain, are mishandling classified material, failing to obey an order, making a false official statement, adultery and conduct unbecoming an officer for allegedly downloading pornography on his government laptop. The last two were added since his release from the brig.

If court-martialed and convicted on all charges, Yee could face up to 13 years in prison. But some familiar with the military justice system insist those alone hardly ever spark this sort of examination, much less 76 days of pretrial confinement, most of it in solitude.

Solis blames prosecutorial "ineptitude" for the Yee case getting blown out of proportion and said the charges probably still haven't been dropped because of a continuing hope to "make gold out of mud."

John Fugh, a retired judge advocate general, said he fears it was more, citing Yee's combination of being both Muslim and of Chinese descent.

"If he were a white American, say a chaplain of some other denomination, I don't think this would have happened," Fugh said. "Any time you do something like this, you're bound to have some damage done to the integrity of the military justice system."

Prisoners are sent to pretrial confinement because they're perceived as dangerous or a flight risk, regardless of the charges, said Lt. Col. Bill Costello at the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, which is responsible for the Guantanamo prison.

Costello hinted that the flight-risk fears might have been a factor. Yee was arrested Sept. 10 as he arrived at a Jacksonville, Fla., naval base, carrying what authorities believed were classified documents. It's not clear now whether they actually were.

"It's easy to look back on it and say, 'Why did you do this, that and the other thing?'" Costello said. "The commander takes the steps he does at the moment in time they're occurring. When you have a military chaplain who is apprehended in Jacksonville carrying documents you believe to be classified, the government would be derelict if it didn't fully investigate what's going on."

The government hasn't signaled any likelihood that it might drop the case, but Yee's attorney, Eugene Fidell, remains hopeful.

"If this current hiatus gives the government an opportunity to catch its breath and take a fresh and calm look at all the circumstances, maybe they'll decide the game is not worth the candle," Fidell said.

[RetPara]

Thats why I've been a little concerned about the case against the numnuts at Fort Lewis who was on the Islamic sites. This is not the first, nor will it be the last time that some MPI/CID/CI folks that really need some adult supervision, screw up.

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I'd like to see what really happened, legally. Not just some BS from the media. I'm willing to give this officer the "benefit of the doubt". Remember, we are all presumed innocent until proven guilty.