Karen Armstrong on Bush, Islam, and the Battle For God

Army Cleric Who Ministered to Detainees Is Arrested
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 ?- An Islamic chaplain in the United States Army who ministered to detainees at the camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where the military holds captured militants and suspected terrorists is now himself under arrest while the Army investigates his activities, military and law enforcement officials said today.
The chaplain, Capt. James J. Yee, also known as Youssef Yee, has not been charged either by the military or by civilian authorities, the officials said. His case is being investigated by the Army and if he is charged, it would most likely be under the military justice code, they said.

Military officials declined to say why Captain Yee, a 1990 graduate of West Point who converted to Islam, was being investigated. But a civilian law enforcement official said that the investigation was aimed at suspicions of espionage, improperly assisting the prisoners or some other breach of military duties.

The arrest was reported in The Washington Times today.

A second law enforcement official said that the military had opened its investigation of Captain Yee before he left Guantánamo and that when he was searched upon arriving at the naval air station in Jacksonville, Fla., investigators found what appeared to be sketches or diagrams of the prisoner facilities at Guantánamo.

Investigators are looking into the possibility that he was sympathetic to prisoners there and was preparing to aid them in some undetermined way.

"That's the fear and the suspicion that the Army is pursuing," the second law enforcement official said.

The camp at the American naval base at Guantánamo, where Captain Yee was stationed, holds mostly foreigners captured in fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan or elsewhere after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Most of them are Muslims, and the military has provided them with Islamic clerics since the camp was established.

The military prison at Charleston, S.C., where Captain Yee was transferred after being arrested in Jacksonville, has also been used to hold suspects facing charges as enemy combatants who might be subjected to trial by military antiterrorism tribunals. But Captain Yee's case is unlikely to be handled that way, officials said.

Instead, as an American citizen and an active duty officer, he might be subjected to charges of violating military law, if the investigation finds grounds for any such charges.

Spokesmen for the Army's Southern Command, confirming that Captain Yee was arrested on Sept. 10 and held since then, said that he had been provided military lawyers to defend himself but declined to give their names. Under military law, they said, he must be given a trial within 120 days of his arrest.

Captain Yee was raised in Springfield, N.J. After graduating from West Point, he served on active duty as an air defense artillery officer, a military spokesman told The Associated Press. He left the Army in the mid-1990's and moved to Syria, the spokesman said. He returned to the United States and re-entered the Army as an Islamic chaplain.

Captain Yee's father and sister declined to comment on the case.

Military officers refused to discuss the reasons for his arrest, saying that would violate his rights.

Civilian officials involved in the case said that their role was secondary, as agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted in the arrest itself and sat in on interviews conducted by military investigators in Jacksonville. The F.B.I. also executed a search warrant in Miami at an apartment that was apparently used by Captain Yee, officials said.

The prisoners at the camp are held under strict supervision but are given some religious amenities. As chaplain, Captain Yee arranged to have recordings of the ritual calls to prayer broadcast through the camp, and to reassure the prisoners their food was prepared according to Islamic dietary guidelines.

Captain Yee has been portrayed in news accounts as a model of a Muslim cleric in American uniform. He occasionally spoke to journalists visiting Guantanamo and was cited as a source before going there. In a typical interview, published by Scripps Howard News Service a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, he said: "An act of terrorism, the taking of innocent civilian lives is prohibited by Islam, and whoever has done this needs to be brought to justice, whether he is Muslim or not."

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that while he was not familiar with the facts of the case, "we certainly hope that this man is given all his rights to due process."

Mr. Hooper added, however, that "there are those in our society who love to question the patriotism of American Islamics and this unfortunately will give them ammunition to do that, no matter what the facts of the case are."