(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-19 11:12

WASHINGTON -- A US federal judge ordered a hearing Tuesday on whether the Bush administration violated a court order by destroying CIA interrogation videos of two al-Qaida suspects.

Demonstrator Maboud Ebrahimzadeh is held down during a simulation of waterboarding outside the Justice Department in Washington Nov. 5, 2007. [Agencies]

In a court order, District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice Department to stay out of the matter.

He ordered lawyers to appear before him Friday morning.

In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos.

The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

The Justice Department argued that the videos weren't covered by the order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas, not at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

David Remes, a lawyer who represents Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, asked for the court hearing.

He said the government was obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.