A federal appeals court-martial ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. government properly classified top secret information more than 50 images of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden taken after his death, and that the government did not need to release them, Reuters reported. The unanimous ruling by three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a request for the images by Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit watchdog group.
The lawsuit posed by Judicial Watch relied on the Freedom of Information Act, a 1966 law guaranteeing public access to some government documents.
The group Judicial Watch argued the government did not adequately prove that releasing the photos could pose a serious risk to national security. Judicial Watch President Tom Fritton said that court needed to stop "rubber-stamping the administration's improper secrecy. There is no provision of the Freedom of Information Act that allows documents to be kept secret because their release might offend our terrorist enemies."
The appeals court rejected their lawsuit, instead accepted an assertion from the Obama administration that the images could cause riots, which would put American abroad at risk. "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 and violence against American interests," the opinion said.
"It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool. That's not who we are. We don't trot out this stuff as trophies," President Obama said in an interview with CBS News.
The images depict a dead bin Laden at his Pakistan compound, the transportation of his body to a U.S. ship at his burial at sea, government said. Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011 after U.S. Navy Seals raided his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
