Feds: "Kill CIA Torture Tape Inquiry"

Court Inquiry on Tape Case Is Opposed

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 16, 2007
NYTimes

The Justice Department has urged a federal judge not to hold a hearing on the Central Intelligence Agency’s destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected Al Qaeda operatives, saying a judicial inquiry “is both unnecessary and potentially disruptive.”

Lawyers representing 12 Yemeni prisoners held at the American prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have asked District Judge Henry H. Kennedy to look into whether, in light of the destruction of the C.I.A. tapes, the government is obeying his order to preserve evidence in their case. Similar motions have been filed in several other cases.

But in papers filed Friday night in United States District Court in Washington, Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, an acting assistant attorney general, said no hearing was necessary. He said that the judge’s 2005 preservation order applied only to Guantánamo detainees, and that the plaintiffs’ lawyers had presented no evidence that the prisoners shown in the destroyed videotapes were held at the camp.

The hundreds of hours of tapes, destroyed in November 2005, showed the interrogations of two men identified as members of Al Qaeda: Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Only Abu Zubaydah is cited in the government’s filing, which says the judge’s preservation order of June 2005 does not apply to him.

The Justice Department on Friday angered members of Congress of both parties by saying the administration would not cooperate with planned inquiries into the tapes’ destruction until the department and the C.I.A. completed their preliminary investigation to determine whether laws were broken.

The department’s Friday night filing raises a similar point, saying a court hearing “could potentially complicate the ongoing efforts to arrive at a full factual understanding of the matter.”

Related Material:

1. Delay Is Sought by Justice Dept. on C.I.A. Inquiry (December 15, 2007)

2. Letter from the Justice Department (pdf)

3. Congress Defies Bush on CIA Tape Probe

4. Interrogation Tapes: Tracking a Paper Trail