A federal appeals court unanimously agreed that the US government was right to classify top secret more than 50 images of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden taken after he was killed, ruling against a watchdog group hoping to make the pictures public.
Judicial Watch, a conservative-leaning organization dedicated to
uncovering abuse and corruption in the legal system, petitioned
Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency to publish 59
images of bin Laden’s corpse after the terrorist leader was killed
during a May 2011 raid in Pakistan.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington DC found that releasing
the pictures could cause “exceptionally grave harm” to
American citizens. The three judges wrote, in a 14-page opinion,
that the portrayal of the bullet that killed bin Laden were
“quite graphic” and “gruesome,” but the real
motivation could have been to quell the possibility of
terrorism.
“It is undisputed that the government is withholding the
images not to shield wrongdoing or avoid embarrassment, but rather
to prevent the killing of Americans,” read the opinion from
Judges Merrick Garland, Judith Rogers and Harry Edwards.
The decision made references to violent outbursts from radical
Islamists after US media wrongfully reported that troops stationed
in the Middle East desecrated the Koran. Cartoon depictions of the
Muslim prophet Muhammad have prompted similar outrage.
Lawyers from Judicial Watch, promising to file an appeal, told
the Washington Post that the judicial system “needs to stop
rubber-stamping this administration’s secrecy.”
This article originally appeared on : RT