TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., 24 September 2004 — The US military dropped spy charges on Wednesday against a Syrian-American airman who worked as a translator at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the latest setback to the Bush administration’s war on terror.
The government had alleged that a spy ring was at work at the base where about 600 prisoners captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and other terrorism suspects are being held.
In a plea deal, the government dropped the spying charges after Senior Airman Ahmad Al-Halabi, 25, pleaded guilty to four lesser charges.
Halabi had originally faced charges of “aiding and abetting the enemy” that could have carried the death penalty.
The military has already dropped charges against a Muslim chaplain, James Yee, who had also been accused of espionage at Guantanamo, and Army Reserve Col. Jackie Duane Farr, who served as an intelligence officer and had been accused of trying to take classified material from the base.
Of the 30 original charges, 14 had already been dropped - including “aiding and abetting the enemy” and another that he gave baklava pastries to the inmates. His lawyer said the airman was unlikely to serve more than the 295 days he had spent in jail prior to his May release.
The sentencing in the case was scheduled for yesterday.
After his day in court a soft-spoken Halabi, dressed in dark blue Air Force dress uniform, glasses and very short hair, told Reuters: “I’m waiting for it to be over. It’s been a long journey.”
The charges to which he pleaded guilty included taking two photographs of a guard tower in Guantanamo, wrongfully transporting a classified document to his living quarters, lying about taking photographs and conduct prejudicial to military discipline by sending unauthorized documents to himself at Travis Air Force base.
“I took two pictures around my work center. I did not have authorization,” Halabi told military judge Barbara Brand as his immigrant father, dressed in a white Muslim skullcap, watched.
Halabi later lied to an investigator. “I was scared that day and I just told him ‘no, I did not take the photos,” he said.
The airman told the judge that he did not know about military restrictions on taking pictures and transporting documents, but the judge said that was not a defense.
Asked if he considered Halabi a potential spy, chief prosecutor Lt. Col. Bryan Wheeler told Reuters: “Obviously we had the concern. We still do.”
He said a recent review that found key documents in the case were not classified had helped Halabi, although he called the four offenses to which Halabi pleaded guilty serious. “You’ve got to go with the facts as you have them and in this case it worked to his benefit,” he said.
Col. John Kellogg, deputy staff judge advocate for Air Mobility Command headquarters, said the nature of espionage made it important to act as quickly as possible in making arrests compared to conventional crimes.
“They were doing the best job they could with the information available at the time,” he said in an interview when asked if investigators had acted overzealously against Halabi.
Halabi’s lawyers disagreed. “He took responsibility for what he did,” attorney Donald Rehkopf said. “But the real crime is the way this case was blown out of proportion from day one.”
A supply clerk, Halabi worked as an Arabic language translator at Guantanamo, where suspected Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters are held, between November 2002 and July 2003.
Since arresting Halabi in July 2003, the government case has been plagued by missteps, including the admission earlier this month that detainee letters Halabi handled were not classified.
In June, the military revealed that it had charged the former supervising agent on the case with raping and sodomizing a preteen girl and with mishandling classified documents. Judge Brand also criticized prosecutors for drinking beer as they reviewed key evidence without wearing gloves.
Halabi moved to the United States to join his father when he was 17 and went to high school in Dearborn, Michigan. He joined the Air Force after his graduation in 2000.
In 2001 he won airman of the year in his supply squadron and also gained US citizenship. In 2002 he spent the summer working in Kuwait, and in November that year he was sent to Guantanamo where he translated letters and other documents for prisoners and interpreted for Military Police guards.
