WEST ORANGE (USA): The former Muslim chaplain at the US Army base at Guantanamo Bay who was once suspected of espionage, says the military is discouraging American Muslims from helping more thoroughly in the ‘war on terror’ by mistreating detainees and viewing Islam suspiciously.

James Yee, the Springfield, New Jersey, native who was arrested on suspicion of espionage in his role as spiritual adviser to Muslim detainees at Guantanamo, claims he and other American Muslim service members at the detention centre were also viewed with suspicion by military commanders.

In an interview with The Associated Press before addressing the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee’s New Jersey chapter on Saturday night, James Yee said his case is one of the things that makes American Muslims wary of cooperating more fully in the struggle against ‘terrorism’.

“When someone like me gets thrown in jail for making positive contributions, people see that and don’t want to have anything to do with the government,” said Mr Yee, 38. He said one higher-up referred to him as ‘that Chinese Taliban’ during the 76 days he spent in solitary confinement in a South Carolina military prison.

Mr Yee grew up as a Lutheran in Springfield, where he was the only Asian in his school and one of only two minorities. He converted to Islam in 1991, drawn to the religion’s diversity, as well as its focus on one God.

Once a highly regarded solider encouraged by commanders to serve as the ‘poster boy for Muslims in the military’, the Gulf war veteran returned to active duty in Jan 2001, and the next year was sent to Guantanamo, the US military base in Cuba where suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners are held.

In addition to seeing to the detainees’ religious needs, he acted as a liaison between them and military commanders, passing along their grievances about how they were being treated. That, Mr Yee said, made him fall under suspicion as well.

“My faith surely was under fire,” he told the anti-discrimination group in his speech. “That fact that I’m a Muslim-American put me in the cross-hairs. Because when I prayed in the Islamic form of prayers, when I read the Holy Quran in the classical Arabic language, it mirrored that of the prisoners. Some interpreted that to believe that meant that me, along with the other American Muslims, were also the enemy.”

He was arrested in Sept 2003 _ two days after receiving the best officer evaluation report he had ever received _ and accused of spying and helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda, offences that carried the death penalty. But the actual charges filed against him dealt only with mishandling classified materials.

Mr Yee said the crux of the case against him stemmed from documents on his computer the military thought were classified.

In reality, he said, most were articles he had downloaded from the Internet for a postgraduate course in international relations he is pursuing. None contained any classified material, and the charges were dropped in March 2004.

Those accusations devastated his family, which is still working to repair their relationships with each other, said Mr Yee, who lives in Olympia, Washington.

Mr Yee received an honourable discharge in January last year, followed by an army commendation for ‘exceptionally meritorious service’.—AP