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CIA admits destroying tapes of terrorist interrogation |
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14:22, December 07, 2007 |
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Thursday admitted destroying at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al Qaida operatives in 2005.
But the agency's director Michael V. Hayden said the tapes were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.
The New York Times informed the CIA Wednesday that it will disclose the incident in Friday's newspaper.
That forced Hayden to write a letter Thursday to the agency's staff to explain the matter.
According to U.S. TV and wire reports, the videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects --including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody --to severe interrogation techniques.
Some CIA officials told the New York Times in private that the tapes were destroyed because the agency was concerned that such tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy.
The existence and subsequent destruction of such tapes are likely to reignite the debate over the use of severe interrogation techniques on terror suspects.
It will also raise questions about whether CIA officials withheld information about aspects of the program from the courts and from the Sept. 11 commission appointed by President George W. Bush and Congress.
It was not clear who within the CIA authorized the destruction of the tapes then, but current and former government officials said it had been approved at the highest levels of the agency. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss, who refused to comment on the issue when he was approached by U.S. media on Thursday.
Source: Xinhua
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