Attorney General Michael Mukasey has asked US Attorney John Durham, responsible for cracking down on the mafia operations in Connecticut, to head the FBI probe into the alleged destruction of the videotapes. “Following a preliminary inquiry into the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations, the Department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter,” the country’s top law enforcement officer said in a statement.

The preliminary inquiry was opened on December 8 last, two days after the disclosure by CIA Director Michael Hayden that the tapes had been destroyed.