NEW YORK - US Justice Department said no charges will be filed against CIA officers who destroyed interrogation videos of Al-Qaida detainees. Special Prosecutor, John Durham, cleared undercover CIA officers and agency lawyers for their role in the destruction of evidence after a three-year investigation, The New York Times reported other day. In 2005 Jose Rodriguez, the head of the CIAs clandestine service, ordered his staff to destroy the 2002 videotaped interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, which took place in Thailand. Rodriguez accepted responsibility for their destruction and said he received authorisation for the action from the agency lawyers. The five-year statute of limitations for filing obstruction-of-justice charges expired Tuesday. Internal CIAs e-mails, released earlier this year in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, showed that Rodriguez had argued that the heat agency officials would take over destroying the tapes is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into the public domain. Rodriguez told another top CIA official that if the images were disclosed out of context, they would make us look terrible; it would be 'devastating to us, an e-mail said. The tapes showed hours of interrogation of the two detainees, including the infliction of a technique called waterboarding that simulates drowning. Robert Bennett, Rodriguezs attorney, told the newspaper the Justice Department did the right thing, claiming Rodriguez is a hero and a patriot who simply wanted to protect his people and his country. Matthew Miller, Director of the Justice Departments Office of Public Affairs, issued the following statement: In January 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Assistant United States Attorney John Durham to investigate the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations. Since that time, a team of prosecutors and FBI agents led by Durham has conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter. As a result of that investigation, Durham has concluded that he would not pursue criminal charges for the destruction of the interrogation videotapes.