Here's my take on David Mulroney's appearance yesterday at the House of Commons Special Committee on the Mission of Afghanistan:
Suspected Taliban insurgents captured by Canadian soldiers in the fall of 2006 may have been tortured by Afghan authorities but Canada has no way of confirming it because it did not have the right systems in place at the time to track what happened to the people it captured, a Commons committee was told Thursday.
David Mulroney, who became deputy minister in charge of the Afghanistan mission in 2007, conceded that fact after being pressed by opposition MPs at the House of Commons special committee on the mission in Afghanistan.
It was not until the spring of 2007 that Canada had a system in place to monitor what happened to people captured by Canadian soldiers, once they were inside Afghan prisons.
He also said that he, along with Peter MacKay, who was foreign affairs minister at the time, senior military officials and other senior bureaucrats were aware that insurgents were routinely tortured by Afghan authorities in those prisons, a determination made not only by credible international and Afghanistan human rights groups but by some of Mulroney's own subordinates … [Read the details on this one]
My friend Murray Brewster, sitting on the other side of the room, during Mulroney's testimony seems to have come to the same conclusions I did with a slightly different but just as appropriate emphasis:
Federal officials were well aware of allegations of abuse in Afghan jails even as the Canadian military was handing over prisoners in 2006, Canada's former top man on Afghanistan says.
The testimony by David Mulroney to a House of Commons committee Thursday supports a key aspect of whistle-blowing diplomat Richard Colvin's claim, and clarifies an important point in the controversy over the detainee issue.
Opposition parties and human rights advocates have been asking why the government continued to turn over prisoners when it knew of abuse in Afghan prisons.
The Harper government has defended itself by arguing there was no credible evidence of torture until 2007, when it changed the transfer system.
But Mulroney, now ambassador to China, suggested there was indeed evidence of torture – just not involving Canadian transferees.
"The fact that there were allegations of mistreatment in Afghan prisons was known to us," said Mulroney, who headed the Privy Council's Afghanistan task force.
"There was no mention specifically of Canadian-transferred prisoners – that was a deficiency that we later cleared up."
He also acknowledged there was no way to get credible evidence about abuse of Canadian transferees because there was no proper monitoring of prisoners prior to 2007. [Read the rest]
Tags: david mulrony, afghanistan, torture claims, peter mackay