A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in favor of the government's decision to keep photos and video of the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden a secret, rebuffing a conservative watchdog group that had sought their release.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington accepted a White House assertion that releasing the images, including death photos of bin Laden, could spark violence and risk the lives of Americans abroad.
The classified images show the dead al-Qaida leader at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the transportation of his body to a U.S. ship and his burial at sea, the government says, according to Reuters. The photographs were taken so the CIA could conduct facial recognition analysis to confirm the body's identity, court papers say, according to the news agency.
"It is undisputed that the government is withholding the images not to shield wrongdoing or embarrassment, but rather to prevent the killing of Americans and violence against American interests," read Tuesday's decision by U.S. Circuit judges Merrick Garland, Judith Rogers and Harry Edwards.
In its decision, the court rejected an argument by conservative group Judicial Watch "that the Central Intelligence Agency failed to show that releasing images of bin Laden's body -- specifically those showing it cleaned and prepared for burial -- would harm national security or reveal classified intelligence strategies," Bloomberg reports.
Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act request elicited 52 records from the CIA, but the agency withheld all of them, citing exemptions for classified materials and information specifically exempted by other laws, according to The Associated Press.
Shortly after the May 2, 2011, raid, President Obama said in a CBS60 Minutes interview that the release of "very graphic" photos of bin Laden's corpse could be used as propaganda by extremists to whip up anti-American violence.
"We don't trot out this stuff as trophies," Obama said.
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