When CIA Destroyed Interrogation Tapes, They Missed One Set

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Ramzi Binalshibh

At least one piece of history survived the CIA’s attempt to erase evidence of its secret prison program during the Bush administration when suspected terrorists were confined throughout the world at hidden locations, interrogated and in some cases tortured.

 
Two videotapes and one audiotape of the interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh have surfaced, following the CIA’s illegal destruction in 2005 of 92 video recordings of other detainees held in secret prisons. The Associated Press reported the Binalshibh’s recordings were found three years ago in a box under a desk at CIA headquarters.
 
But the tapes do not show Binalshibh, who was allegedly a key liaison between the 9/11 hijackers and al-Qaeda’s leadership, being tortured, just answering questions from intelligence officers in Morocco, where the Yemeni was confined. He was also imprisoned in Pakistan, Romania and, beginning in September 2006, at the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay. Although Binalshibh has been in U.S. custody for almost eight years and he has been charged with war crimes and there appears to be strong evidence against him, he has yet to face either a civilian trial or a military commission.
 
The Department of Justice is continuing its investigation of the CIA’s destruction of the other tapes, which occurred in November 2005, immediately after news accounts revealed the existence of the CIA’s secret prisons. It is unclear why the existence of the Binalshibh CIA tapes was revealed now, three years after their discovery.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Terrorist Interrogation Tapes Found (by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press)

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