Index

Wen Ho Lee's release asked

August 4, 2000

BY LAWRENCE SPOHN SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

The Federation of American Scientists, founded by the first nuclear weapons scientists, has asked a federal judge to release former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee from jail.

The organization's president, Henry Kelly, sent a letter to U.S. District Judge James Parker, urging Lee's release on bail pending trial.

Lee faces more than 50 allegations of computer security violations while he worked as a nuclear weapons code analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"Incredibly, Dr. Lee has now served over seven months under extraordinarily harsh prison conditions, although he has been convicted of no crime," Kelly said in the letter sent this week.

"This is hard to reconcile with our understanding of American justice. It seems more like the Red Queen's policy in `Alice in Wonderland': `sentence first--verdict afterwards.' "

The letter was sent on behalf of the 2,500-member organization.

Kelly argued that "continued incarceration of Dr. Lee is indecent" and expressed the hope that Parker "will find that it is also contrary to law."

Kelly said the federation has "no independent knowledge of the facts of the case" but is concerned that "specifics of the allegations against Dr. Lee have shifted dramatically from when he was publicly portrayed last year as an alleged spy for the People's Republic of China to the present time, when he is accused of computer security violations."

Parker is considering a defense motion to grant Lee's release on bond and is expected to hold a court hearing later this month.

Lee is being held in solitary confinement in a Santa Fe jail, with limited access to his family.

Government witnesses at a previous bail hearing testified that Lee remains a threat to national security.

But the Federation of American Scientists cited recent analysis by nuclear weapons experts, including a former Los Alamos lab director who scoffed at the idea that Lee poses a threat to world nuclear stability.

The federation was founded in 1945 by several of the disenchanted scientists who worked during World War II on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos to develop and test the first atomic bomb.