Matt Apuzzo, AP
Afederal judge on Tuesday ordered the Bush administration to defend its decision to destroy videotapes of CIA interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects.
In a one-sentence order, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice Department to stay out of the matter and told lawyers to appear before him Friday at 11 a.m.
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.