Gitmo cleric in porn and adultery rap

A Muslim chaplain accused of taking classified material from the U.S. prison for terrorist suspects in Cuba has been released, but now faces charges of adultery and storing pornography. The military released Army Capt. James Yee from custody on Tuesday and assigned him to duties at Fort Benning, Ga., said Raul Duany, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command. Authorities arrested Yee, 35, on Sept. 10 in Jacksonville, Fla., and charged him a month later with disobeying an order for allegedly taking classified material from Guantanamo and transporting it without proper security containers. The new charges announced Tuesday included making a false statement, storing pornography on a government computer and having sexual relations outside marriage, a punishable offense under military law. Yee, a Chinese-American, converted to Islam after graduating from West Point. He will face an Article 32 hearing on Monday the military equivalent of a grand jury or preliminary hearing, officials said. "It`s going to be an open hearing at Fort Benning," said Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the officer in charge of the mission at Guantanamo who will also preside over the hearing. "These usually last about two weeks." Yee`s lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said he was pleased that his client was released but disappointed by the new charges. "The additional charges are the kind of thing that can give military justice a bad the name especially the adultery charge," Fidell said. The Uniform Code of Military Justice classifies adultery as a punishable offense, U.S. Southern Command said. The adultery allegedly occurred with an unspecified woman at Guantanamo and in Orlando, Fla., between July and September 2003, and the pornography was on his government-issued computer at the base in eastern Cuba, Duany told The Associated Press. Yee, who also uses the first name Yousef, will be assigned to the Fort Benning base chaplain, but his exact duties remain to be determined, said Capt. Tom Crosson, another spokesman at the U.S. Southern Command. When he was arrested, rumors swirled he had been charged with espionage relating to his contact with the detainees in Guantanamo, none of whom have been charged. Some have been held for nearly two years. Federal agents had said they found the former Lutheran from Springfield, N.J., carrying sketches of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he counseled prisoners accused of links to Afghanistan`s deposed Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terror network. Yee formerly was stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash. His wife, Huda Suboh, 29, who lives in Olympia, Wash., with their two young children, accused the government of trying to malign his character. "I believe steadfastly my husband is innocent of all these charges, including adultery and downloading pornography," she said in a statement read to The Olympian newspaper late Tuesday by a family friend. "I stand by him. It is clear to me that the U.S. government only wants to destroy his character and his family." Yee, who arrived at Guantanamo in November of 2002, advised Miller, the officer in charge there, on topics ranging from the history of Islam to the rise in suicide attempts among the some 660 detainees being held at the bleak prison camp. Miller said another Muslim chaplain would arrive in Guantanamo next week from Fort Jackson, S.C. Officials would only give the new chaplain`s rank and last name "Capt. Shabazz." Yee is one of three men with contact with the terrorism suspects at Guantanamo to face charges. An Arabic translator, Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, has pleaded innocent to charges of espionage and aiding the enemy. A civilian interpreter, Ahmad F. Mehalba, was arrested last month in Boston and charged with lying to federal agents by denying computer discs he was carrying had classified information from Guantanamo. He also has pleaded innocent. Yee left his middle-class New Jersey neighborhood to enroll at West Point, graduating in 1990. But soon after his graduation, Yee left the military to study Arabic and undergo Muslim religious instruction in Syria for four years. The Army welcomed him back, and he became a chaplain with the 29th Signal Battalion at Fort Lewis. He was there during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. "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," Yee said after the attacks. Yee arrived at Guantanamo in November of 2002.