US: A hearing for a Muslim army chaplain once suspected of espionage, but now charged with little more than mishandling classified documents at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, ground to a halt yesterday amid accusations that the military was withholding evidence, hiding witnesses and jeopardizing the right to a fair trial.
Lawyers for Capt James Yee, who was arrested in September and charged with taking government materials without proper security locks out of Guantanamo in Cuba, said normal military procedures were not being followed in the case.
"Trial by ambush. I believe that is what has happened in this case," Mr Eugene Fidell, one of Capt Yee's civilian defence lawyers, told reporters during a press conference at the Fort Benning army base in Atlanta. Mr Fidell said the military's inability and refusal to make some evidence and witnesses available to the defence, and its attempts to hold some legal discussions in private, could violate Capt Yee's constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial.
Prosecutors said they were trying to expedite the disclosure of documents, some of which may be considered classified.
The delay came one day after prosecutors began laying out their case against Capt Yee, who was held in a Navy prison for more than two months following his arrest on September 10th at a naval air station in Jacksonville, Florida. On Monday a Department of Homeland Security special agent told the court that "suspicious" notes with information about detainees and interrogators at Guantanamo were found in Capt Yee's backpack in the Jacksonville air station.
Media reports in September quoted defence officials as suggesting Capt Yee may have been part of a major espionage plot at Guantanamo, where he had contact with at least some of the 660 men who are being held as suspected terrorists. None of the existing charges against Capt Yee, which include allegations that stored pornography on a laptop and lied to military personnel, are related to spying.