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Justice officials knew of dumped tapes
Justice Department attorneys apparently have known since early 2006 that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of a key terror suspect, federal court documents unsealed on Wednesday showed.
- By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
- Published: 01:04 February 8, 2008
Washington: Justice Department attorneys apparently have known since early 2006 that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of a key terror suspect, federal court documents unsealed on Wednesday showed.
The disclosure that at least two prosecutors in the US attorney's office in Alexandria, Virginia, apparently were aware of the agency's actions raises new questions about a matter under probe by the Justice Department.
The newly surfaced documents, filed in the case of convicted September 11, 2001, conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, provided the first firm indication of when the Justice Department learned that the CIA was destroying videos. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey is expected to be asked about the issue by the House Judiciary Committee.
The unsealed documents included a December 18 letter to a federal judge in Richmond, Virginia, in which the government said that the former lead prosecutor in the Moussaoui case may have been told in late February or early March 2006 that videotapes on Abu Zubaydah were destroyed.
The letter said that the prosecutor, Robert A. Spencer, did not recall receiving the information. But it also said that another unidentified assistant US attorney recalled giving the information to Spencer.
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