Obstruction of Justice at the CIA
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED December 6, 2007
The Bush Administration has had a consistent practice of destroying evidence which would document serious crimes perpetrated with the connivance or consent of senior officials, particularly including acts of torture and abuse performed on detainees in connection with what President Bush calls the “Program.”
Today, as Congress proceeds with legislation which clarifies what has always been the case, namely that the application of these procedures is a serious crime, the New York Times reports
the wholesale destruction of important evidence of the crimes as a conscious policy at the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.
The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques.
They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.
The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss declined this afternoon to comment on the destruction of the tapes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/washington/06cnd-intel.html?ei=5088&en=9b07eb20244e3d62&ex=1354597200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=printIn addition to being evidence of criminal conduct undertaken with official sanction, the evidence would be probative of the value of any “confessions” or “admissions” secured using the techniques. It would establish that any such evidence is worthless.
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001868 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
