Asian-Americans demand White House action on Lee

Wen Ho Lee

September 19, 2000
Web posted at: 6:05 AM HKT (2205 GMT)

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WASHINGTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) -- Asian-American leaders on Monday piled pressure on the White House to appoint a special commission to investigate whether racism played a role in prosecutors' treatment of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.

The Taiwanese-born Lee was released last Wednesday after nine months in solitary confinement, with a judge apologising to him and blasting the U.S. government for "embarrassing our entire nation" with spying allegations that were never proven.

Asian-American leaders made their request at a long-scheduled "town hall meeting" in New York on Monday organised by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a forum created by President Bill Clinton last June to address issues affecting Asian-Americans.

"We feel that the Wen Ho Lee case and its aftermath is first and foremost of concern at this meeting today," said Henry Tang, president of the Committee of 100, an organisation of prominent Chinese-Americans.

Several Asian-American bodies, such as the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Organisation of Chinese-Americans in New York, joined the Committee of 100 in the plea for an inquiry.

"The bottom line is we want there to be a national, independent body with subpoena powers with Asian-Americans as staff members to investigate this issue. This needs to happen," said Tang in a telephone interview from New York.

Last Friday, President Bill Clinton called for a review to determine if the government had been justified in holding Lee without bail for nine months. He did not specify what form this review would take.

However, Clinton said he did not believe Lee was singled out because of his Asian heritage. "I don't think there's any evidence of that," Clinton said.

Martha Choe, who heads the President's Advisory Commission and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said in a statement the commissioners were "deeply disturbed" by the treatment of Lee and were compiling a report for Clinton giving recommendations on the case.

"Dr. Lee's treatment and his case disturbs us greatly," said Choe, who presides over the 15-member commission. "We as a commission have expressed our concerns -- in the strongest manner possible -- on how this case was handled."

Commission member and leading AIDS researcher David Ho said they would submit comprehensive recommendations on what actions should be taken by the government to deal with concerns over the Lee case and other issues.

"We have heard from several community leaders and take all their comments very seriously. Their suggestions will be incorporated in our upcoming report," he said.

The judge in the Lee case, James Parker, had ordered the government to hand over thousands of pages of classified documents detailing why Lee was targeted for investigation. Tang said an independent body should have access to these.

When a plea bargain was reached leading to Lee's release last week, Parker dropped his demand for the documents, which Asian-American leaders feel are crucial to understanding what went on in the nuclear scientist's case.

Under his deal, Lee pleaded guilty to a felony count of copying U.S. nuclear weapons design secrets to a non-secure computer tape at Los Alamos laboratory and was sentenced to the time already spent in jail. The government dropped 58 counts, including acting to harm the United States, which could have sent Lee to prison for life.

Tang said Asian-Americans feared there was "institutionalized ethnic profiling" at bodies such as the FBI and the Energy Department.

"What's coming out is that there is a broader problem than what happened to Wen Ho Lee. There are other victims but they do not receive the same notoriety," said Tang.

At the FBI, officials said there would be an internal review of the case. One official called it "standard procedure" and said it was "automatically" done in any case when the FBI's actions have been criticised by a judge.

Asked about the New York meeting, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the primary focus of the discussions would not be the Lee case but that he was sure the issue would come up.

"To the extent it comes up in the discussions there, I'm sure they will entertain the questions," he told reporters.

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