WASHINGTON, 21 September 2003 — An Army Muslim chaplain who worked with Al-Qaeda and Taleban prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba has been charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and spying.

Capt. James Yee, a 1990 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, was arrested earlier this month as he arrived in Florida from Guantanamo, according to yesterday’s Washington Times.

The army charged Capt. Yee with five offenses: sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order. The Army may also charge him with treason, which under the Uniform Code of Military Justice could be punishable by a maximum life sentence.

It is unknown what country or organization is suspected of receiving information from Capt. Yee, said the Times.

Capt Yee, of Chinese-American descent, was a command chaplain for I Corps at Fort Lewis, Washington. He was sent to Cuba by the Army to counsel the detained Al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects.

Capt. Yee, 35, was raised in New Jersey as a Christian. While attending West Point he studied and converted to Islam. After leaving the army in the mid-1990s, he moved to Syria to further his Islamic education. There he married a Syrian woman.

Upon return to the US in the mid-90s, he re-entered the army as a Muslim cleric where, according to the Times, Capt. Yee had unlimited private access to Guantanamo detainees — as part of the Pentagon’s program to provide prisoners with religious counseling.

The US classifies the Guantanamo detainees as “enemy combatants,” not prisoners of war, which would enable them to be treated according to the Geneva conventions. It is believed the Pentagon intends to hold most of these men until the war on terrorism is over.

A source told the Times that “highest levels” of government made the decision to arrest Capt. Yee, who had been under surveillance.

Now incarcerated at the army’s Charleston prison, Capt. Yee joins three other notable war-on-terrorism detainees: Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American-born Saudi who fought with the Taleban in Afghanistan; Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who is charged with plotting to detonate a radioactive bomb; and Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, accused to being an Al-Qaeda sleeper agent.