Washington, (IRNA-PTI) — The Bush administration has come under fresh attack from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s attorney daughter, whose civil liberties group is seeking a court order for government records on the destruction of alleged torture tapes by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The American Civil Liberties Union, where the PM’s daughter Amrit Singh is a staff attorney, has filed papers asking a federal judge to order the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other government agencies to produce all records in their possession relating to the destruction of two videotapes by CIA operatives in 2005 as well as transcripts and summaries of the tapes.
Amrit Singh had earlier co-edited a report titled “Administration of Torture: A Documentary History from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond”, which alleged that in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush administration condoned “torture”.
The latest ACLU’s filing comes in the wake of revelations that administration officials took part in discussions with the CIA about whether or not to destroy the tapes, which show harsh interrogations of two prisoners in US custody, Abu Zubaida and Abd al-Rahim al- Nashiri.
“Serious questions remain about the extent to which the White House and other government agencies were complicit in the CIA’s destruction of the tapes,” said Amrit Singh, who is staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
The public is entitled to know who authorized such a flagrant disregard for the rule of law and why nothing was done to stop it.” For its part, the Bush administration has given no indication that it has lost much sleep over any of the harsh criticism it has been getting over the CIA tapes that has prompted at least one top Democratic lawmaker to say that the furore over the 1970s’ “Watergate” scandal involving the then president Richard Nixon pales in comparison to the present case.
The latest filing is an addendum to a motion to hold the CIA in contempt of court filed by the ACLU last week.
According to a press release of the ACLU, on December 12, 2007, it filed a motion asking a federal judge to hold the CIA in contempt of court, charging that the agency flouted a court order when it destroyed the tapes.
In response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by the ACLU and other organisations in October 2003 and May 2004, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the CIA to produce or identify all records pertaining to the treatment of detainees in its custody.
Despite the court’s ruling, the CIA never produced the tapes or even acknowledged their existence.
Earlier this month, in anticipation of media reports concerning the tapes, CIA Director Michael Hayden publicly acknowledged that the CIA had made the tapes in 2002 but destroyed them in 2005.
The allegation has been that in the light of recent revelations, the White House and the FBI may be in possession of records that could shed light on the content of the tapes or the decision to destroy them.
The latest memo filed by the ACLU asks the District Court to order the White House and all government agencies to produce any copies, transcripts or other descriptions of the destroyed tapes, as well as any records relating to the destruction or contemplated destruction of the tapes in their possession.
It also asks the court to prohibit the agencies from destroying any records relating to the tapes.
“The public has a right to know why these tapes were destroyed, and on whose authority,” Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project said in the organisation’s press release.
“The government had a legal obligation to preserve the tapes and to process them under the Freedom of Information Act. Reports that White House and Justice Department officials gave the green light for the destruction of the tapes are profoundly disturbing,” he added.