Federal Judge Won't Review Destruction Of CIA Videotapes

A federal judge yesterday declined to order a special review of the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes, saying that there is no evidence the Bush administration defied court orders and that Justice Department prosecutors should be allowed to proceed with their own investigation into the matter.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. said in a three-page ruling in Washington that a group of inmates held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "offer nothing to support their assertion that a judicial inquiry" is necessary into the tape destruction. He said neither of the detainees whose interrogations were taped and later destroyed has an apparent connection to the prisoners who were demanding the review.

Kennedy also wrote that he expects the Justice Department "will follow the facts wherever they may lead and live up to the assurances it made to this court."

The ruling was a blow to plaintiffs attorneys, defense lawyers and civil liberties groups who have sought to challenge the administration's credibility in court over its admitted destruction of the interrogation videotapes in 2005.

The CIA destroyed hundreds of hours of CIA videotape showing coercive interrogation tactics used on two senior al-Qaeda suspects in 2002: Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, known as Abu Zubaida, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said the tapes had been destroyed to protect the identities of interrogators, but other CIA officials have said they were destroyed to protect the interrogators from potential prosecution.

The Justice Department announced last week that it had opened a criminal investigation into the tapes' destruction. The House intelligence committee has also launched its own inquiry and has issued a subpoena to Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA clandestine operations chief who agency officials said ordered the tapes' destruction.

Officials at the Justice Department, which had urged the court to stay out of the case, declined to comment. David H. Remes, an attorney for plaintiffs in the case who have been detained at Guantanamo Bay, was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

During a Dec. 22 hearing, Remes told Kennedy that the tape destruction showed that the administration was willing to destroy evidence of possible torture and that the court should find out what else could be missing. The plaintiffs specifically worried that the CIA might have destroyed material subject to a court order.

But in his ruling, Kennedy said there was no evidence of wrongdoing. He noted that the destroyed tapes were not even recorded at Guantanamo Bay.

The impact of the ruling on other cases is unclear. New York lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, for example, has filed a similar claim in Washington seeking information about the tapes on behalf of Qatari detainee Jarallah al-Marri and others. But Hafetz said his motion was based on the government's obligation to preserve all potentially relevant evidence for a future criminal case, whether or not it is specifically covered by a court order.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.