Charges dropped against Guantanamo colonel

The U.S. Army has dropped all charges against a colonel who served as an intelligence officer at the Guantanamo prison and had been accused of trying to take classified material from the base, officials said Thursday.

Army Reserve Col. Jackie Duane Farr was the highest-ranking of three U.S. service members charged in 2003 in connection with suspected security breaches at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding about 585 foreign terrorism suspects.

All charges have now been dropped against Farr as well as Army Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain who ministered to prisoners, while the prosecution case against Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi, an Arabic language translator, has run into numerous troubles.

The Army dropped charges against Farr of disobeying an order by transporting classified material without the proper security container, and making a false statement during an investigation, said Army Maj. Hank McIntire, a spokesman at the Guantanamo base.

‘Nonjudicial punishment’
Instead, Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the Guantanamo prison, on Aug. 27 imposed “nonjudicial punishment” in an administrative proceeding, McIntire said.

The charges were dropped “to more quickly resolve the matter to serve the best interests of the military and Colonel Farr,” McIntire said, adding there would be no further action taken against Farr.

McIntire declined to reveal the nature of the punishment given to Farr. “Because of the Privacy Act, we can’t give the specifics of anything that was imposed. We can just say it was resolved nonjudicially,” McIntire said.

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Farr, who had directed the intelligence-gathering operation for U.S. personnel who interrogated Guantanamo prisoners, had faced up to seven years in prison if convicted.

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Honorable discharge OK’d for Yee
The Army has approved Yee’s resignation from the military effective next January and will grant him an honorable discharge, said Eugene Fidell, Yee’s lawyer. Yee is stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington state.

In March, the Army dropped all criminal charges against Yee, abandoning an espionage case that once included accusations in court documents of spying, mutiny, sedition, aiding the enemy and espionage.

His exoneration was completed when the head of U.S. Southern Command in April dismissed Yee’s noncriminal convictions for adultery and storing pornographic images on a government computer.

Military prosecutors already have dropped 14 of 30 charges brought against al Halabi. Hearings on motions before his planned court-martial at Travis Air Force Base in California were scheduled for Tuesday and then Thursday of this week, but now have been pushed back to Monday.