The Justice Department's inspector general announced today that investigators had found hundreds of prison videotapes that were not turned over by federal prison officials during an earlier investigation and that the tapes confirm reports of serious physical and verbal abuse of immigrants detained after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found that "some officers slammed and bounced detainees against the wall, twisted their arms and hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg restraint chains and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time," according to a report released today.

The report also found that jail personnel improperly taped meetings between detainees and their lawyers and overused strip searches to punish them.

Fine's office concluded that as many as 20 guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, N.Y. were involved in the abuse and recommended discipline or counseling for 12 of those who remain employed there.

The report said that many of the allegations were confirmed through the viewing of more than 300 videotapes recorded from October to November 2001 that showed detainees being moved around the facility and within their cells.

MDC officials had repeatedly told Fine's investigators that such tapes no longer existed, and many of those interviewed earlier had denied conduct that was confirmed on the tapes. The report also found, however, that many tapes remain missing and that there are unexplained gaps in the footage, despite a requirement to keep such material for two years under U.S. Bureau of Prisons policies.

Today's findings follow a report issued last June that found "excessively restrictive and unduly harsh" conditions for Sept. 11 detainees, some of whom faced weeks of delays in obtaining lawyers or making telephone calls and were often kept for months in cells illuminated 24 hours a day.

The earlier report also found "a pattern of physical and verbal abuse," but concluded that further investigation was necessary. At the time, Justice Department prosecutors had declined to pursue criminal prosecutions.

A Justice Department official was not available for comment this morning.

A federal dragnet in the wake of the attacks resulted in the detention of more than 1,200 foreign nationals, including 762 immigration cases examined by Fine. Most were of Arab or South Asian descent and had violated immigration laws in some way. None of the group were ever charged with terrorism related crimes