Thursday August 31 6:17 p.m. EDT

Justice Tries to Comply With Ruby Ridge Probe

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The Justice Department said Thursday it would try to comply with a congressional subpoena demanding a wide range of documents and other materials involving the deadly 1992 shootout in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick said at the weekly Justice Department news briefing the agency was attempting to meet the demands in the subpoena without compromising its criminal probe into the affair.

A Senate Judiciary subcommittee is set to open hearings next week on Ruby Ridge, which together with the disastrous 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian religious compound in Waco, Texas, has fueled anti-government views of militia groups.

Five FBI officials have been suspended as a result of the shootout, in which the wife of white separatist leader Randy Weaver was accidentally killed by an FBI sharpshooter. In addition, Weaver's 14-year-old son and a federal marshal were killed in the August 1992 siege.

The Justice Department has begun a criminal probe into allegations that FBI officials lied or destroyed documents during internal inquiries into the incident and the FBI's use of an unprecedent ``shoot-on-sight'' policy.

The hearings, scheduled to last several weeks, will be chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Department officialas said the sweeping subpoena had been served Aug. 17 and demanded 12 broad categories of documents as well as other materials.

Department spokesman Carl Stern told reporters the agency this week sent to the subcommittee more than 50 audiotapes and videotapes, including some electronic surveillance tapes made by federal agents, and six boxes of documents.

But he said FBI officials and prosecutors still had to go through as many as 60 boxes of documents in determining what can be turned over to the panel without jeopardizing the investigation.

Gorelick said the Justice Department wanted to accomodate the subcommittee so the hearings can go forward without hurting the investigation.

But she repeated the Justice Department would have preferred that Specter delay the hearing until the criminal probe had been completed -- a position he has rejected.