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CIA has begun to lose, destroy documents admits they will continue rendition program

CIA has begun to lose, destroy documents admits they will continue rendition program
folder_openInternational News access_time15 years ago
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Source: rawstory.co, 24-04-2008
By John Byrne
Two recent reports signal that the agency has begun to destroy evidence of harsh interrogations conducted at US prisons. Last year, the CIA acknowledged it had destroyed videotapes of two interrogations they were asked to provide to the Sept. 11 commission.
Earlier this week, the erstwhile director of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay said records of a prisoner who accused his captors of torturing him had been destroyed.
"Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared," the Guardian writes. "The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost."
Documents show they expected legal challenges from the start
The Central Intelligence Agency knew from the beginning that its secret detention and torturous interrogation tactics probably bordered on illegal from the start, according to new documents identified through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
In a filing yesterday, the CIA said it had identified 7,000 pages of classified memos, emails and other records relating to President Bush's secret detention and interrogation program. Human rights groups quickly jumped on the filing -- which came after their own Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking information about those detained.
The CIA also acknowledged in their filings that the program "will continue." Terror suspects detained or "renditioned" by the United States are transferred to third party countries that allow torture which gives the US a legal loophole to allow harsh interrogation without being legally liable. Such suspects, who effectively disappear, are held without access to courts.
The US has refused to produce a list of the suspects it is holding in sites overseas, and only recently provided a list of those held captive at Guantánamo Bay.
Amnesty International says at least 30 people are believed to still be held in secret prisons.
In 2006, President Bush muted dissent surrounding the program by announcing that he would transfer 14 "high-value" detainees to Guantánamo Bay.
The filing also shows that the agency sought legal advice from the White House Office of Legal Counsel numerous times over several years.
"The CIA's purpose in requesting advice from OLC was the very likely prospect of criminal, civil, or administrative litigation against the CIA and CIA personnel who participate in the Program," Ralph S. DiMaio, information review officer for the CIA's clandestine service, said in the documents.
Such proceedings, he added, would "be virtually inevitable."
Nineteen documents were withheld; the Bush Administration cited "presidential communications privilege." The withholding of documents under presidential privilege has been a common practice of the Bush Administration -- but its decision to do so in this case appears a tacit acknowledgment of the high-level interaction between Bush advisors and CIA officials.
The filing says that some of the withheld documents were "authored or solicited and received by the President's senior advisors in connection with a decision, or potential decision, to be made by the president."