Washington: The Bush administration has come under fresh attack from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's attorney daughter, whose civil liberties group is seeking a court order for government records on the destruction of alleged torture tapes by the CIA.

The American Civil Liberties Union, where the PM's daughter Amrit Singh is a staff attorney, has filed papers asking a federal judge to order the White House, the FBI, and other government agencies to produce all records in their possession relating to the destruction of two videotapes by CIA operatives in 2005 as well as transcripts and summaries of the tapes.

Amrit Singh had earlier co-edited a report titled "Administration of Torture: A Documentary History from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond", which alleged that in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush administration condoned "torture". The latest ACLU's filing comes in the wake of revelations that administration officials took part in discussions with the CIA about whether or not to destroy the tapes, which show harsh interrogations of two prisoners in US custody, Abu Zubaida and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

"Serious questions remain about the extent to which the White House and other government agencies were complicit in the CIA's destruction of the tapes," said Amrit Singh, who is staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants Rights Project. "The public is entitled to know who authorised such a flagrant disregard for the rule of law and why nothing was done to stop it."

Source : PTI