Hearing focuses on sex charge in Yee case

By Carol Rosenberg
Knight Ridder Newspapers

	ERIK S. LESSER / GETTY IMAGES Capt. James Yee, a U.S. Army chaplain, holds his daughter, Sarah, while walking with his wife, Huda Suboh, to a hearing yesterday in Fort Benning, Ga.
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Related stories Greek court convicts 15 in terror group Notebook: U.S. is sending 2,000 on Afghan offensive

FORT BENNING, Ga. — A Muslim Army chaplain accused of mishandling classified documents was carrying a typewritten list with the names of prisoners at the U.S. detention camp for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and their interrogators when he was arrested, a Customs agent testified yesterday.

Customs Special Agent Sean Rafferty said he found the list in the backpack of U.S. Army Capt. James "Youseff" Yee on Sept. 10, when Yee arrived at the Jacksonville, Fla., Naval Air Station to begin a leave from Guantánamo, where he had been ministering to the 660 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners held there. The names of the detainees have never been made public.

Yee, 35, who earlier served at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, is one of four people at the military's high-security prison to be arrested since September.

Rafferty said he and an immigration inspector sought out Yee because of an alert from an agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

He said he searched Yee's backpack and found two pocket-size notebooks, a paper on Syria and a typed list of names and numbers with the top torn off.

Rafferty testified by cellphone from Jacksonville on the first day of a hearing to determine whether Yee should face a court-martial on six charges brought against him ranging from mishandling classified documents to storing pornography on a government computer to adultery, a criminal offense under military law.

"I found numerous notes of a suspicious nature," Rafferty said. "It was determined the documents were of interest to national security."

Some of the documents mentioned Syria and others dealt with Guantánamo and the U.S. interrogators who work there, Rafferty said.

After a brief recess so Yee's attorney, Eugene Fidell, could interview the man for the first time, Rafferty said under questioning that none of the material was marked "secret" or "classified."

Fidell said the paper on Syria was part of Yee's work as a graduate student in international studies.

Rafferty's testimony was the first to link Yee to specific information from Guantánamo.

Fidell bristled at restrictions that would allow Rafferty and at least 19 other witnesses to testify by telephone.

Fidell also lambasted early reports that his client was facing espionage and treason charges.

He called the early reports "reprehensible, quite disgraceful that this officer's reputation was tarnished in a way that can never be repaired."

Yee was held for 76 days in a Navy brig in South Carolina before the Army released him. The government then filed the additional charges, including adultery.

His detention also prompted congressional hearings on the Pentagon's process for clearing Muslim chaplains for service. In the end, however, the charges against Yee, a West Point graduate, were much less serious.

Much of yesterday's testimony focused on the least serious of the charges: that Yee had sex with a fellow officer, even though he is married. Navy Lt. Karyn Wallace, 36, now based in San Diego, testified that while she was posted at Guantánamo as a health-and-safety officer, she had "maybe 20" sexual encounters with Yee.

Wallace was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Robert Crow, one of three prosecutors on the case.

Prosecutors also presented photos of the Army chaplain hugging the Navy lieutenant on a couch and a handwritten note to support their case.

Yee's wife, Huda Suboh, 29, who lives in Olympia, Wash., sometimes cried as Wallace testified.

If Yee is court-martialed on all six charges, he could face a maximum penalty of 13 years in prison, a dishonorable discharge and loss of pay.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company