NEW YORK, Dec 7: The CIA destroyed in 2005 at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention programme, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects, including Abu Zubaydah , to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, the newspaper said quoting several officials.
In a statement to employees on Thursday, CIA director Michael V. Hayden said that the decision to destroy the tapes was made “within the agency.” and that they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.
The destruction of the tapes raises questions about whether agency officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sept. 11 commission about aspects of the programme.
The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which was appointed by President Bush and Congress, and which had made formal requests to the CIA for transcripts and other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.
The Times said that the disclosures about the tapes were likely to reignite the debate over laws that allow the CIA to use interrogation practices more severe than those allowed to other agencies.
A Congressional conference committee voted late on Wednesday to outlaw those interrogation practices, but the measure has yet to pass the full House and Senate and is likely to face a veto from Mr Bush.
The New York Times informed the intelligence agency on Wednesday evening that it was preparing to publish an article about the destruction of the tapes. In his statement to employees on Thursday, General Hayden said that the agency had acted “in line with the law” and that he was informing CIA employees “because the press has learned” about the matter.
General Hayden’s statement said that the tapes posed a “serious security risk” and that if they had become public they would have exposed CIA officials “and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathisers”.
Current and former intelligence officials told the newspaper that the decision to destroy the tapes was made by the head of the Directorate of Operations, the agency’s clandestine service.
