Through much of 2007, Canadian Forces military police officer Sgt. Carol Utton personally witnessed and participated in the transfer of dozens of suspected Taliban insurgents from the Canadian base at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan to Afghan authorities. The detainees would be taken to an Afghan-run prison where — I'm sure you've heard by now — we have now been told by senior Canadian diplomats testifying before a House of Commons committee [and, no, that's not a link to Richard Colvin but to another, even more senior, diplomat] that torture of those prisoners was widespread and routine at that time.
And yet — as Sgt. Utton, a military police office, testified this week in Ottawa before the Military Police Complaints Commission:
… once the Afghans had the detainee, Utton and other military police had no responsibility — or even interest — in the welfare of their former prisoners. She testified that, so far as she was aware, there was never any order or training for military police to take an interest in or to inspect conditions in Afghan prisons.
Indeed, military police had little cause for concern because the about-to-be transferred detainees themselves appeared to look forward to being in Afghan custody.
“Some of them seemed quite delighted,” Utton said in response to questioning by commission counsel Ron Lunau.
In fact, she described to the commission how upset one detainee was when Afghan authorities refused to take him and he was forced to stay in Canadian custody.
“The detainee had suffered severe medical complications after his IED exploded on him and he was quite injured by the time the transfer was to be made,” Utton said. “The (Afghans) were going to refuse because (Canadian media reports) said that the (Afghan) jail is filthy and the (Afghans) did not want to be blamed for anything that might happen to this detainee. And it took a lot of convincing that he was medically fit to be transferred. And the (Afghans) did take him at the time, but they had reservations.”
[Read the rest of the story ..]
Tags: afghanistan, detainees, canadian forces
Mr. Akin I read through all of Mr. Mulroney's testimony before the committee and to characterize that testimony as confirmation of widespread torture of Canadian transferred detainees is false.
He said prior to the May 2007 agreement there was NO CREDIBLE evidence Canadian transferred detainees were abused. After the May 2007 agreement there was a report of abuse and the transfer was stopped while an investigation was carried out.
Mr. Mulroney was very specific that reports had to contain factual evidence not hear-say or speculation. Words to live by.
… if the happy ones are examples of one type of corruption reported in the AFG prison system:
More here at the Huffington Post.
G&M : Troops knew of Afghan abuse, inquiry told</a.
"Captain Mark Naipaul said detainees were unhappy about being handed over to Afghan authorities. This was in part because Canadian detention was much more comfortable.
"They would often joke about leaving the facility [because] they had good food; they could see they were getting bigger."
On some occasions, Mr. Naipaul said, a detainee would grow agitated or upset after being told they were being handed over to the Afghan government.
"[They] would get upset, raise his voice, question why he was being transferred, [and say] he hadn't done anything wrong."