Military Expands Probe at Guantanamo Bay

The Pentagon is looking into security procedures at its main prison for terrorism suspects after the espionage-related arrests of two men stationed there.

Defense officials said Wednesday that a third service member also was being investigated in the security probe at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, base. That Navy member has not been arrested, officials said.

The arrests of an Air Force translator and a Muslim Army chaplain – both were stationed at the Cuban base and have ties to Syria – have shaken Defense Department officials. About 660 suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members are being held at the high-security base.

“We don’t presume that the two we know about is all there is to it,” Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

On Capitol Hill, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said security procedures at Guantanamo Bay were being reviewed.

“Any time you have allegations like this, you always look at your procedure and process,” Myers said.

So far, charges have been filed only against Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, 24, who worked as an Arabic translator for the detainees. He is accused of espionage, aiding the enemy, lying to investigators and trying to pass classified information about prisoners and base security to “the enemy” and to his native Syria. The most serious charges carry a possible death sentence.

Al-Halabi denies the charges, said his lawyer, Air Force Maj. James Key III. He is also accused of not reporting unauthorized contacts with the Syrian Embassy, but Key said those contacts were to arrange for a trip to Syria to get married. Al-Halabi had his plane ticket for that trip with him when he was arrested July 23 after arriving in Florida from Guantanamo Bay, Key said.

Syrian government spokesmen denied links to the airman, who was arrested in July, more than six weeks before the arrest of the chaplain, Army Capt. Yousef Yee, 35. Yee has not been charged but is being held in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., on suspicion of breaching Guantanamo Bay security.

Yee also has ties to Syria: He learned Arabic and studied Islam there for four years in the early 1990s. Al-Halabi lived in Syria at the time, but he was still a boy; he traveled with his family to the Detroit area in 1996 and went to high school in a Detroit suburb.

The two men served at Guantanamo Bay at the same time and knew each other, though the extent of their relationship is unclear, said military officials and Key.

Senior law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there is no evidence of involvement by individuals in the United States who are not part of the U.S. military.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday urging an investigation of security measures at Guantanamo Bay. Schumer said the arrests indicate security measures “are incredibly lax at some of our supposedly most secure military facilities.”

Guantanamo Bay is meant to house some of the worst suspected terrorists, the Pentagon says. Shortly after the first prisoners were moved there, Myers responded to criticism of the prisoners’ heavily shackled transport by saying they were the kind of men who would gnaw through hydraulic cables of a transport plane to try to bring it down.

The Pentagon has never said precisely how many prisoners are held at the base, nor does the military identify any of the detainees or which countries they come from. Arrivals and departures of prisoners from the base are announced, if at all, after their transport is complete.

Word of Yee’s Sept. 10 arrest leaked over the weekend, and military officials acknowledged al-Halabi’s arrest Tuesday. Air Force Brig. Gen. Bradley S. Baker had ordered al-Halabi’s preliminary court hearing closed, but the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals ordered some of the proceedings to be opened, Key said.

Al-Halabi was a supply clerk before being pressed into service as a translator at Guantanamo Bay, according to Key and military records. He is accused of failing to report improper contacts between prisoners and other, unidentified members of the military.

Military authorities say he took pictures of the base and stole information such as maps, flight schedules and prisoners’ cell numbers to give to someone going to Syria and an unidentified “enemy.” The Air Force hasn’t told defense lawyers who that “enemy” is, Key said.

Al-Halabi is being held at a prison on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Authorities have imposed restrictions on him, including banning him from speaking Arabic, Key said. That means he has to speak to his father through a translator when the father visits, Key said.

Al-Halabi also has talked on the phone – through translators – to his fiance, who remains in Syria, Key said. He said al-Halabi’s family is shocked at the allegations.

“Airman al-Halabi’s father testified at the hearing … how much Airman al-Halabi loved the United States, how important being in America was to him,” Key said in a telephone interview. “They’re shocked at the allegations he may have done something contrary to the United States’ interests.”

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Associated Press writers Pauline Jelinek and Curt Anderson contributed to this report.