WASHINGTON (AFP)
A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday ordered President George W. Bush's administration to preserve evidence that might prove a detainee at Guantanamo Bay was tortured while in CIA hands.
Coming after the admission by the Central Intelligence Agency that it had destroyed videotapes of harsh interrogations of terror suspects, the preliminary order by the federal appeals court said the government had to protect any evidence related to the case of Majid Khan.
Khan, 27, a legal U.S. resident and Pakistani never charged with a crime during his three years detained by the CIA, has alleged he was tortured by the spy agency.
In a motion submitted to the court by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Khan, who was detained in 2003 in Karachi, was said to have been subjected "to an aggressive CIA detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture."
The 25-page motion released publicly was heavily edited to remove any references deemed by government authorities as sensitive to U.S. national security interests.
The filing alleged the government had a record of destroying evidence related to its interrogation of war-on-terror suspects.
"Absent a preservation order, there is a substantial risk that the torture evidence will disappear," it said.
According to the ruling Tuesday, the government has until December 20 to respond to Khan's assertions.
Last week CIA chief Michael Hayden admitted that in 2005 the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of terror suspects, at a time when the U.S. Congress was investigating allegations of torture.
Majid Khan, a Pakistani who lived in Baltimore, Maryland before his capture in Pakistan in 2003, was taken to Guantanamo last September after being held in secret CIA detention centers.
"The Department of Defense today will grant access for a civilian defense attorney to meet with Majid Khan, a Pakistani national and one of 15 high value detainees held at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Khan is alleged by U.S. authorities to be an Al-Qaeda operative who was selected by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, for a possible attack in the United States. |
