Sunday, July 05, 2009
Prosecutor John Durham, (AP Photo/Bob Child)
Despite President Barack Obama’s pledge not to hold CIA agents accountable for their participation in the torture of suspected terrorists, the Justice Department has quietly continued a grand jury investigation begun during President George W. Bush’s last year in office. The investigation, led by Connecticut prosecutor John L. Durham, has been especially secretive in its examination of the destruction of 92 tapes that showed the brutal interrogations of two al Qaeda detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
Among those called to testify before the grand jury were former CIA director Porter Goss, who was in charge of the agency when the interrogation tapes were destroyed in November 2005. The official who ordered the destruction, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the CIA’s clandestine branch, has reportedly not been called yet to testify.
But the agency’s current station chief in London, who previously worked with Rodriguez and may have helped destroy the tapes at a safe house in Thailand, has appeared before the grand jury. That person’s name has not been revealed in order to not expose his or her identity.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Grand Jury Inquiry on Destruction of C.I.A. Tapes (by Mark Mazzetti, New York Times)
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