WASHINGTON -- The Muslim chaplain in the Army who was once accused of being a spy at the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay Navy Base submitted a letter of resignation yesterday saying that he had never received an apology for being locked up for 76 days before the case against him collapsed and that his personal belongings in Cuba were not returned.
Army Captain James Yee notified his commanding officer that he will seek a discharge from the military in January, citing the espionage allegations against him that were leaked to the media in September 2003 and that "irreparably injured my personal and professional reputation and destroyed my prospects for a career in the United States Army."
The letter from Yee, who has been stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash., since court-martial proceedings against him foundered earlier this year, is his first publicly available comments about his case because he is under orders not to make any speech that would be "disrespectful" toward military authorities or other officials or to criticize military policy in a "disloyal" manner.
"My ability to defend myself against this pattern of unfairness has been impeded by official correspondence, the clear purpose of which is to chill the exercise of my right to free speech," Yee wrote. "I have waited for months for an apology for the treatment to which I have been subjected, but none has been forthcoming. I have been unable even to obtain my personal effects from Guantanamo Bay, despite repeated requests."
There was no immediate response from the military.
Yee formerly ministered to Muslim soldiers and about 650 accused members of Al Qaeda and Taliban imprisoned at Guantanamo. He was arrested on Sept. 10 at Jacksonville Naval Air Station after a customs agent, tipped off by waiting FBI and military counterintelligence officials, searched his bag. Yee allegedly had papers with information thought to be related to the prison.
The military, which has never explained why it first grew suspicious of Yee, took him to a Navy brig in South Carolina, where he was locked up for 76 days -- much of it in maximum-security solitary confinement.
The Washington Times broke the story of Yee's arrest in a front-page article on Sept. 20, citing an anonymous source to incorrectly report that the chaplain had been charged with "sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage, and failure to obey a general order."
In fact, Yee was never charged with any of those crimes. The Army accused him of mishandling classified information by taking papers home and transporting them without the proper covers. Later, allegations of adultery and downloading pornography onto his government computer were made during the investigation. Yee's lawyer, Eugene Fidell, has said that the morality charges were a face-saving gesture by military officials after they were unable to prove their national security case against Yee.
Early this year, the then-Guantanamo commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, downgraded the case to administrative proceedings and dropped the charges relating to classified materials. The military never said what the evidence taken from Yee at the time of his arrest showed.
In March, Miller found Yee guilty of adultery and accessing porn on his government computer and ordered him punished by placing a letter of reprimand in his permanent file. A higher general later set that reprimand aside.
In a related development, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which in June won a Supreme Court decision opening the doors of US courts to Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention without trial, asked a judge yesterday for an order preventing the military from holding a combatant status review tribunal for three of its clients -- all British citizens -- until those detainees meet with their lawyers.
The tribunals, which began last week in response to the Supreme Court decision, are the first judicial-like proceedings the detainees have had in the more than two years they have been held without charges. The tribunals allow detainees to challenge their individual designation as "enemy combatants" before a military panel with the help of a military official who is not a lawyer.
Also yesterday, the Pentagon announced that it had transferred five Moroccan detainees to the control of their home government, reducing the total number of detainees left at Guantanamo to about 585. The military said the transfer had been arranged prior to the commencement of the combatant status review tribunals.