Detainees Ask Court for Probe Into Destroyed CIA Tapes

Guantanamo/Detainees

Detainees Ask Court for Probe Into Destroyed CIA Tapes

Posted Dec 10, 2007, 06:43 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Lawyers for 11 Yemeni detainees yesterday asked a federal judge to begin a formal inquiry into whether the CIA violated a preservation order when it destroyed two videotapes of interrogations of al-Qaida suspects.

The detainees’ motion (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) was filed with U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy of Washington, D.C., shortly after midnight Saturday, SCOTUSblog reports.

Kennedy had issued an order in June 2005 requiring the government to “preserve and maintain all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”

The CIA acknowledged destroying the videotapes in 2005, but did not specify the date. The agency said the tapes were destroyed to safeguard undercover officers and because they were no longer needed for intelligence purposes, ABAJournal.com noted in an earlier post.

The detainees’ lawyers had sought the preservation order on Jan. 6, 2005, citing “shocking revelations” by FBI agents confirming harsh techniques that amounted to torture, SCOTUSblog says.

Similar motions are expected to be filed by lawyers for other detainees, according to the blog.

Legal Times say inquiries into the videotape destruction are likely to involve CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo, a lawyer for the agency since 1976. The legal publication says Rizzo “was waist deep in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, and he was the legal filter for the new interrogation and detainment powers that President Bush heaped on the CIA after Sept. 11, 2001.”

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