A human rights campaigner has been forced to apologise after accidentally accusing a BBC journalist of running an CIA torture site.
Kenneth Roth, the head of Human Right Watch tweeted a picture of Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis and said: “Of all the people Trump could have picked as deputy CIA director, he chose woman who ran CIA black site for torture.”
Maitlis corrected him:
Roth deleted his tweet and clarified that he had meant to post a picture of the CIA’s new deputy director, Gina Haspel.
His European media director also replied to Maitlis on Twitter:
Roth’s tweet caused much mirth on social media...
Black sites were secret locations outside the US where the CIA used various techniques for interrogating suspects.
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 earlier to The Associated Press.
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.