Judge Requires Report on Destruction of Interrogation Tapes
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered the Bush administration to issue a written report explaining why videotapes of harsh interrogations of two terrorism suspects were destroyed.
U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts said yesterday the report should disclose whether other evidence was also destroyed in violation of his order to preserve evidence in the case of a Guantanamo detainee, the Associated Press reports. The due date is in three weeks.
Robinson said one al-Qaida suspect questioned in the videos, Abu Zubaydah, may have been asked about the plaintiff in the case before him, Yemeni electrician Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, the New York Times reports.
Roberts said the report should explain “the nature of any evidence potentially subject to the protective order that has been destroyed.”
