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Guantanamo bay espionage charges Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/09/23/airforce.detainee/http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/09/23/airforce.detainee/
Air Force airman charged with espionage
From Barbara Starr
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) --A U.S. Air Force enlisted man has been charged with espionage after being taken into custody as part of an investigation at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials said.
The senior airman was detained a month ago because he allegedly had classified information about suspected al Qaeda detainees and facilities at the Guantanamo Bay base on his laptop computer, officials said.
He was taken into custody about two weeks before Army Islamic chaplain Capt. James Yee was detained for similar reasons, but officials said there currently was no proof that the two cases are linked.
He is being held at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, officials said.
Officials said that when the airman was questioned he had no reasonable explanation for possessing the classified material.
Officials also told CNN that there is a possibility of additional arrests soon of other members of the U.S. military.
Yee, who also has not been charged, is being held in the brig in Charleston, South Carolina, on suspicion of espionage and treason.
U.S. military authorities took him into custody September 10 at the Jacksonville, Florida, Naval Air Station while he was in possession of classified documents "that a chaplain shouldn't have," said an official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The official said the documents included "diagrams of the cells and the facilities at Guantanamo," where the military is holding about 600 suspected al Qaeda members and others termed enemy combatants.
Yee also allegedly was carrying lists of the detainees as well as their interrogators, the official said.
In addition, Yee is suspected of having ties to radical Muslims in the United States that are now under investigation, the official said, adding that he couldn't elaborate.
Yee, who has been assigned a military defense lawyer, can be held for 120 days before the military charges him with any offense, officials said.
He appeared September 15 before a military magistrate who ruled there was sufficient reason to hold him in pretrial confinement.
Army officials with the U.S. Southern Command, which controls the Guantanamo Bay facility, said that they could not comment on the status of the investigation.
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