The arrests of Yee and Ahmad al-Halabi, an Air Force interpreter at Guantanamo, have revived the issue. Yee, a Muslim convert who became one of the Pentagon’s best-publicized Islamic clerics after 9/11, was carted off to a Navy brig in South Carolina after federal agents reportedly discovered he had classified material about the Guantanamo camp in his possession. All that Army officials will say is that Yee is being held on the order of a military magistrate. Separately, the Pentagon disclosed last week that al-Halabi, who served at Guantanamo between November 2002 and July, had been charged with trying to deliver to Syria classified information about cell blocks and military air movements at the camp. Agents also found he had letters belonging to suspected Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at his home. Though official documents imply that the Syrian-born al-Halabi might have been trying to turn over U.S. secrets to the Syrian government, officials told NEWSWEEK they fear that he might have acquired the material for transmission to groups linked to terrorism, like the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, whose members helped to recruit some of the 9/11 hijackers. Yee’s military defense lawyers had no comment on his case. But Maj. Kim London, a defense lawyer for al-Halabi, said, “He’s not a spy and he’s not a terrorist.”
