Former Central Intelligence Agency official Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. refused to testify before the Congress unless he will be granted immunity. The House Intelligence Committee scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday in the case of the ex - CIA agent who ordered the destruction of interrogation videotapes of prisoners at a remote and secret overseas location five years ago.

In 2002, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were suspected of being al Qaeda members and accused of terrorist acts, were submitted by the CIA to harsh interrogation processes, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

With a criminal investigation under way, CIA disclosed having destroyed hundreds of tapes showing the interrogation procedures, despite the 2005 court order according to which all documents on the mistreatment of prisoners are to be preserved.

The former CIA head wrote in a statement that the interrogations of the two prisoners did not take place at Guantanamo, Cuba, which would enter under the incidence of Kennedy’s 2005 order, and as far as he is concerned, he did not have the obligation to preserve the tapes.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy has been assigned an investigation, after lawyers of several Yemeni detainees claimed an investigation on mistreatment of prisoners and the illegal destruction of documents, which defied the 2005 order, should not be led by the Justice Department.

However, Judge Kennedy denied their request, saying that the Justice Department was to handle the investigation. The lawyers of the 11 detainees regarded the Department of Justice’s investigation as unreliable, but according to Kennedy, the terror suspects’ lawyers brought no substantial evidence to prove that.

The techniques used by the CIA during prisoner interrogations have been condemned as illegal torture by the international organizations. Several human rights groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, and other critics declared to have serious doubts on whether the investigation conducted by the Department of Justice will be an objective one.