Pentagon Has 50 Interrogation Tapes of Two Enemy Combatants
Defense Department officials told the New York Times that a review has turned up 50 videotapes of interrogations at military facilities that show interrogations of two men held as enemy combatants.
The suspects who were videotaped are Jose Padilla, recently convicted of plotting overseas attacks for al-Qaida, and Ali al-Marri, who is challenging his confinement before the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A federal judge said she reduced Padilla’s sentence from life in prison to 17 years and four months because of his prior harsh confinement as an enemy combatant.
Last year, Padilla’s lawyers said 87 out of 88 video recordings were turned over to the defense but the final interrogation was missing, according to a Associated Press story published at the time. It’s unclear from the Times story if the missing tape has been found and whether the 50 identified tapes were among those already turned over to lawyers.
Marri was arrested in 2001 while he was attending college in Illinois because he was believed to be plotting an attack for al-Qaida. Two officials told the Times that one tape showed FBI agents treating the suspect roughly as they gagged him with duct tape, but they did not do anything that could be described as torture.
One of Marri’s lawyers, Jonathan Hafetz, said his client had overheard guards talking about “a cabinet full” of interrogation tapes, but this is the first confirmation that they exist. He plans to file court papers today that say the confinement has resulted in psychological harm to Marri. Hafetz told the Washington Post that his client has been subjected to stress positions, sensory deprivation, and threats of death.
A judge in 2006 refused Marri’s request for access to the interrogation tapes. The decision is on appeal.
