A Vietnam War deserter from B.C. will probably be released from a California military base where he's being held within a week, the U.S. Marine Corps said on Tuesday.

However, 56-year-old Allen Abney may not be released in time for his brother's funeral, which is scheduled for Saturday, as these cases take about seven days on average.

Despite being held at the military base, the marines say Abney is not being detained in a jail cell and has access to a window and a TV.

Marine Corps spokesman Lieut. Lawton King said Abney is most likely to be discharged rather than face a court martial.

He has also been able to make telephone calls, despite earlier reports from his family to the contrary, King told The Globe and Mail.

Abney was arrested last Thursday when he and his wife were crossing the United States border into Idaho -- as they had done many times before -- from their home in Kingsgate, B.C.

They were on their way to Reno, Nev. for a holiday when the border guard asked the two to come inside.

A routine computer check last Thursday, however, revealed an arrest warrant. Since then he has been held at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego.

Abney was born in the U.S. but grew up in Canada. He joined the Marine Corps in 1968 at the age of 19. After going through basic training in North Carolina, he fled to Canada before he could be sent to Vietnam.

Thousands of young Americans did the same thing, although many were dodging the draft rather than deserting.

Many of them also moved to the southern B.C. interior.

The move to arrest Abney 38 years after the warrant was issued is not part of an attempt to crack down on deserters, the Marine Corps insists.

But some find the scenario puzzling. Human rights lawyer Jeffry House, who himself fled to Canada during the Vietnam era to avoid the draft, said the development "is a bit of a mystery."

"You would have to know the internal workings of the U.S. government to know (the reasoning), but I certainly suspect that it's related to the present war and to the fact that there are 8,000 deserters from the present war," he told CTV Newsnet Tuesday.

"I suppose it's a kind of method of warning people that the United States military ... has a long memory."

Abney became a Canadian citizen in 1977, the same year U.S. President Jimmy Carter offered a pardon to war resistors, or so-called "draft dodgers" if they applied.

Carter also allowed war deserters to apply for resolution of their cases.

For whatever reason, Abney never applied.

Charges of desertion have a sliding scale of penalties. The results range from an "other-than-honourable discharge" to a maximum penalty of five years in jail.