Jailers at Guantanamo urged to destroy interrogation notes: lawyer

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US interrogators of "war on terror" detainees were instructed to destroy handwritten notes that might have exposed harsh or even illegal questioning methods at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a lawyer for one of the prisoners said Sunday.

Navy Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler said in a statement sent to reporters he considers the notes crucial to the defense of his client, Canadian Omar Khadr, during his upcoming murder trial by a special military tribunal at the US naval base.

Kuebler said the instructions were handed down to interrogators from the US Department of Defense as part of a standard operating procedure or "SOP" directive that he obtained from prosecutors last week.

If they were carried out, US interrogators may have "routinely...