[NYTr] Fed Judge orders hearing on Bush Destruction of Torture videotapes

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via CNN - Dec 18, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/18/cia.tapes.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Judge orders hearing on destroyed CIA videotapes

WASHINGTON (AP)  -- A federal judge has ordered a hearing on whether
the Bush administration violated a court order by destroying CIA
interrogation videos of terror suspects.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice
Department to stay out of the matter. He ordered lawyers to appear
before him Friday morning.

In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the administration to safeguard "all
evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse
of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The
recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim
al-Nashiri. The Justice Department argued that the videos weren't
covered by the order because the two men were being held in secret CIA
prisons overseas, not at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

 David Remes, a lawyer who represents a Yemeni national and other
detainees, asked for the court hearing. He said the government was
obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is
not being destroyed.

The Justice Department and CIA are investigating the destruction of the
tapes and have urged Congress and the courts to give them space and
time to let them investigate.

Remes urged Kennedy not to comply.

"Plainly the government wants only foxes guarding this henhouse," Remes
wrote in court documents this week.

Kennedy did not say why he was ordering the hearing or what he planned
to ask. Even if the judge accepts the argument that government did not
violate his order, he still could raise questions about obstruction or
spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or
reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.