Following the Trump administration\u2019s appointment of Gina Haspel as Deputy Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International, said:
\u201cReports that Gina Haspel directed the alleged CIA \u2018black site\u2019 in Thailand, at a time when detainees held there were subjected to torture and enforced disappearance, as well as a possible role in the destruction of evidence of such crimes under international law, raise extremely serious concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n
“Reports that Gina Haspel directed the alleged CIA \u2018black site\u2019 in Thailand, at a time when detainees held there were subjected to torture and enforced disappearance, raise extremely serious concerns.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
\u201cThis announcement comes on the heels of President Trump\u2019s recent vocal support for torture, and means all indicators are flashing red.
\u201cThese allegations are serious and must be subject to close scrutiny. No one should be appointed to a position where they could interfere in the investigation of or facilitate the concealment crimes under international law.
\u201cWith all the Trump administration\u2019s talk of \u2018extreme vetting\u2019, they must not fail to vet public officials for their ability to uphold the US constitution and international law.<\/p>\n\n\n“With all the Trump administration\u2019s talk of \u2018extreme vetting\u2019, they must not fail to vet public officials for their ability to uphold the US constitution and international law.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
\u201cThe Obama administration\u2019s failure to conduct investigations into alleged torture, enforced disappearance and other crimes under international law committed in the CIA\u2019s secret detention programme does not mean that those suspected of involvement in these crimes are in the clear. Rather, it now falls on the Trump administration to order independent and impartial investigations and hold those responsible to account, irrespective of rank or status.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Background<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Various reports indicate that Gina Haspel directed the alleged CIA \u201cblack site\u201d in Thailand, where two detainees, Abu Zubaydah and \u2018Abd al Nashiri, were held in 2002 and subjected to torture as well as to enforced disappearance \u2013 crimes under international law.
Videotapes were made of the men\u2019s interrogations, including recordings of waterboarding, a torture technique which amounts to mock execution by interrupted drowning. These tapes were destroyed by the CIA in November 2005, in a move approved by Jos\u00e9 Rodriguez, former head of the CIA\u2019s Counterterrorist Center and National Clandestine Service. Gina Haspel is reported to have also been involved in the destruction of the tapes.
Concealing evidence of a crime by state agents may constitute criminal complicity.
No one has been held accountable for the crimes under international law committed in the CIA detention programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the Trump administration\u2019s appointment of Gina Haspel as Deputy Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International, said: \u201cReports that Gina Haspel directed the alleged CIA \u2018black site\u2019 in Thailand, at a time when detainees held there were subjected to torture and enforced disappearance, as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1585],"location":[1587,1589],"resourceType":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","location-thailand","location-world"],"datePosted":"February 6, 2017","mlpRelationships":{"1":1565,"2":1550},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resourceType?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}