The United States intelligence agency the CIA has confirmed that it destroyed at least two video tapes, showing its agents interrogating Al-Qaeda suspects when its secret detention program was under scrutiny two years ago. They are thought to show suspects being subjected to harsh interrogation techniques. Justin Webb reports from Washington.
In a letter to all CIA employees, the agency’s director Michael Hayden said the video tapes posed a serious security risk were they ever to leak they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues exposing them and their families to retaliation from Al-Qaeda and its sympathizers. The CIA explanation for the destruction of the tapes is not accepted by civil liberty groups and by some senior politicians here who point out that the CIA has been asked in the past about interrogation tapes, for instance, by the 911 commission and has denied their existence.