Judge urged to open CIA tapes inquiry

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A lawyer for a group of terrorism suspects held by the United States told a court on Friday that trusting the Justice Department with an inquiry into the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes would amount to putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

A Justice Department lawyer told the same hearing, however, that an independent court inquiry being requested by the suspects' lawyers could damage a joint investigation being carried out by his department and the CIA's inspector general.

David Remes, the lawyer for 11 Yemeni detainees in the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, had asked District Judge Henry Kennedy for a legal probe to determine whether the CIA's action violated a 2005 court order to preserve evidence of detainee mistreatment at the naval base in Cuba.

"Why should the court not permit the Department of Justice to do just that?" Kennedy replied at the hearing. The judge said he would issue a ruling later.

The CIA disclosed on December 6 that it destroyed hundreds of hours of tapes in 2005 showing the interrogation of two suspected al Qaeda suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

The taped interrogations were believed to show a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, which rights activists have condemned as torture.

The CIA maintains that it destroyed the tapes lawfully to protect the agents involved in the interrogations.

News of the tapes' destruction prompted an outcry from human rights activists and Democrats in Congress as well as investigations by both the Bush administration and Congress.

It was a further blow to the United States' international image, which had been damaged by the revelation of harsh treatment of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.

"UNWISE AND IMPRUDENT"

At Friday's court hearing, Justice Department lawyer Joseph Hunt described a court inquiry as "unwise and imprudent" and warned it could damage the joint Justice Department-CIA investigation.

Hunt told Kennedy that Justice Department officials would notify him if they found evidence that his court order had been violated.

But Remes urged the court to consider a broad inquiry into the U.S. handling of interrogation records, saying there was no reason to believe officials had stopped at the CIA interrogation tapes.

"We have a smoking gun," said Remes, who charged that the same Justice Department investigating the handling of the CIA tapes might also have sanctioned their destruction.

"It's the classic case of the fox guarding the hen house," he said.

The Justice Department told Kennedy that the al Qaeda suspects were not interrogated at Guantanamo Bay and should not be subject to the 2005 order.