CIA: tapes not relevant to civil case

The CIA was not required to preserve videotapes of terrorist interrogations for a lawsuit brought against it over the treatment of detainees, the government said in court papers released Friday.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit in 2004, had asked a judge last month to find the CIA in contempt for destroying the videotapes.

Government lawyers said the CIA was not required to divulge any information from its operational records.

"The CIA therefore had no duty to preserve the videotapes due to the initiation of this lawsuit," the government said in written arguments submitted in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said the government's arguments were "without merit" and that the organization would file a formal response with the court Monday.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit seeking to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request for records concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad.

The group asked for the contempt order after CIA Director Michael Hayden said last month that the agency destroyed the tapes in 2005.

The tapes were made to document CIA use of new, harsh questioning techniques approved by the White House to force prisoners to talk.

In court papers dated Thursday, government lawyers said the videotapes were made as part of an internal review by the CIA of its terrorist detention and interrogation program.

"Special reviews are akin to audits or inspections. Like audits or inspections, and unlike investigations, special reviews typically do not arise in response to allegations of CIA wrongdoing," the attorneys wrote.

If the court decides not to toss out the contempt request, it should at least suspend its consideration of the ACLU request pending a probe by the Justice Department into the destruction of the tapes, they said.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently appointed a prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation and determine whether destroying the tapes amounted to obstruction of justice or violated any court orders.

The ACLU said the destruction of the tapes violated U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein's 2004 order to the CIA to produce or identify all records pertaining to the treatment of detainees in custody.

The FOIA requests were filed by the ACLU and other organizations in October 2003 and May 2004.