CIA’s new deputy director, Gina Haspel, is linked to waterboarding at secret prison

The new deputy director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran a CIA prison in Thailand where terror suspects were waterboarded — the form of torture that US President Donald Trump has supported.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo announced Thursday that he has selected Gina Haspel to be the first female career CIA officer to be named deputy director. She has extensive overseas experience, including several stints as chief of station at outposts abroad. In Washington, she has held several top senior leadership positions, including deputy director of the National Clandestine Service and deputy director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action.

She also had a role in the CIA’s former covert programme where suspected terrorists were subjected to harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning. More than a decade after it was last used, the CIA is still haunted by the legacy of a tactic that the US government itself regarded as torture before the Bush administration authorised its use against terrorist suspects.

It’s unclear if Pompeo’s pick signals an attempt to restart the harsh interrogation and detention programme. Last week, news organisations obtained a copy of a draft executive order that would order up recommendations on whether the US should reopen CIA detention facilities outside the United States. It also orders a review of interrogation methods used on terror suspects and calls for suggested modifications that would not violate the US legal ban on torture.

Haspel briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to current and former US intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. She also helped carry out an order that the CIA destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges.

Trump, who has pushed for tougher interrogation techniques, said he would consult with Pompeo and Defence Secretary James Mattis before authorising any new policy. But he said he had asked top intelligence officials: “Does torture work? And the answer was ‘Yes, absolutely.’”