January 10, 2008

Judge Rejects Review Of CIA Videos; Official Demands Immunity

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy yesterday refused to delve into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos, saying there was no evidence the Bush administration violated a court order to preserve the tapes. Kennedy said that he would not open a separate inquiry into the matter and that the Justice Department deserved time to conduct its own investigation.

Also yesterday, sources told AP that lawyers for former CIA official Jose Rodriguez informed Congress he would not testify about the tapes before the House without a guarantee of immunity from prosecution. Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, ordered the destruction of the tapes in question in 2005. He is scheduled to testify before a House committee on Jan. 16.

Despite Kennedy's ruling, lawmakers have refused to leave the case to the Justice Department and are insisting on holding their own hearings. CongressDaily reports that Kennedy's decision was a victory for the administration, which had urged the courts not to wade into a politically charged issue already under investigation by the DOJ, not to mention the CIA and Congress.

The CIA did acknowledge it destroyed videos of officers using controversial techniques, including waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation methods," while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. Those tapes were destroyed five months after Kennedy's 2005 order that all evidence relating to the abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay be preserved. The CIA argues that the footage, however, was shot before the suspects were taken to the prison.

When the full criminal investigation into the tapes' destruction was announced last week, BBC reports, lawyers for 11 Yemeni inmates being held at the prison told Kennedy that trusting the DOJ to investigate the charges was a "classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse." In his refusal to grant the review, Kennedy countered that the specific footage in question was, in fact, taken before his order and would not have been covered.

Posted at 9:15 AM
Posted to: Bush Administration, CIA
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