For Mr. Remes, the answer was simple. “Plainly, the government wants only foxes guarding the henhouse,” he asserted in his motion. Considering the government’s behavior so far, Mr. Remes argued, the Justice Department is not entitled to a presumption that it will do the right thing.

The destruction in 2005 of the videotapes, disclosed earlier this month, has caused a furor in the capital. Critics of the administration have seized on the episode as further evidence that it may have a lot to hide in its treatment of detainees. In addition to a joint inquiry by the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency’s own inspector general’s office, at least one investigation has been begun in Congress.

Lawyers for the detainees say the destruction of the tapes may have violated an order issued by Judge Kennedy himself earlier in 2005, and may be a sign that other evidence was destroyed.

Government lawyers argued, in part, that the detainees’ lawyers have not even shown convincingly that their clients were covered by Judge Kennedy’s order of June 10, 2005, since the order applied only to prisoners who were indisputably at Guantánamo Bay on June 10, and there is a question about the whereabouts of at least some of the detainees on that date.

The government also asserted that Mr. Remes has failed to show that Judge Kennedy’s order, calling for the preservation of documents concerning the “torture, treatment and abuse” of Guantánamo Bay prisoners, addresses any incident in which his clients were involved.