Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured
Flashback: Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’
Murray Brewster, Canadian Press
October 14, 2009
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| Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin visited Kandahar’s Sarpoza prison, shown here in a March 2007 photo, before writing a detailed report a month later detailing his concerns about the possible torture of prisoners. Graham Thomson/CP |
OTTAWA–A Canadian diplomat warned the federal government in writing early in 2006 that Afghan prisoners faced the possibility of torture – reports that have been smothered under a blanket of national security.
The politically explosive revelation was made in an affidavit filed by Richard Colvin – now an intelligence officer with the Foreign Affairs Department – to the Military Police Complaints Commission, which once again adjourned public hearings Wednesday.
The inquiry, which is looking at what military police knew, or should have known, about possible Afghan prison torture, has been put on hold for at least six months amid court appeals over its jurisdiction.
Colvin’s written submission stated that two reports – one on May 26, 2006, and the other on June 2, 2006 – were distributed widely in the Foreign Affairs and Defence Departments, including to senior military commanders in both Ottawa and Kandahar.
Yet when allegations of abuse surfaced the following spring, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and several cabinet ministers insisted they had received no credible reports from Canadian officials about possible torture.
Soon after becoming the political staff officer at the Kandahar provincial reconstruction base in April 2006, Colvin investigated what he described as problems with the handover of prisoners by Canadian soldiers to local authorities.
He visited Kandahar’s Sarpoza prison before writing a detailed report a month later.
“Judging these problems regarding Afghan detainees to be serious, imminent and alarming, I made investigations and detailed my findings formally in my reporting from the PRT,” Colvin wrote.
He asked the deputy commander of the reconstruction base for input and Maj. Erik Liebert made his own inquiries before the two collaborated on the first report.
Precisely what was said in that report is still covered by national security.
But Colvin sent a second more specific report that “dealt with two issues, one of which concerned the risk of torture and/or actual torture of Afghan detainees.”
His warning was based on “a source or sources that I assessed at the time, and assess today, as highly credible.”
The issue of whether prisoners were being tortured exploded in the House of Commons the following spring after a series of published reports.
At the time, Harper described the published reports as “baseless allegations.”
Stockwell Day, who was public safety minister and in charge of Correction Canada staff in Kandahar, said the abuse reports were “false allegations” and accused the opposition of believing Taliban propaganda.
The current public safety minister, Peter Van Loan, who was the government House leader in 2007, was even more adamant on April 29, 2007, responding to the opposition fury: “We have yet to see one specific allegation of torture. If they have one, we’d be happy to chase it down.”
Colvin’s reports were submitted to the Foreign Affairs Department and cc’d to senior military officers, through what he described as specific “action address” channels, “which ensured it would not only be received and read, but should be acted on.”
It remains unclear in the 16-page affidavit whether the stark warnings were passed along directly to then-Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor or to new Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who was in the foreign affairs portfolio at the time.
But Colvin said he received a reply to the first report and was confident it had been read by the Provost Marshal, the military’s top cop.
Colvin still has copies of the reports, but has not yet turned them over to the commission.
Paul Champ, lawyer for Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association which filed the complaint with the police commission, said he was startled to read about Colvin’s reports.
He said the reports were not disclosed in previous court actions launched by the human-rights groups, which have been trying to halt transfers of Afghan prisoners.
The inquiry ground to a halt Wednesday when commissioner Peter Tinsley agreed to adjourn hearings until the courts ultimately decide the scope of his investigation.
In his decision, Tinsley blasted the federal government for stonewalling, saying that “some of the key lessons of the Somalia experience” when it comes to public accountability “have not been learned.”
The torture and murder of a Somali teenager in 1993 and the resulting attempts to cover-up the death was a seminal time for the Canadian military – events which led to the creation of the Military Police Complaints Commission.
Aside from legal challenges of its mandate, the commission has not received any documents from either the defence or foreign affairs departments since its decision to launch public hearings over a year ago.
Government lawyers argue that the records need to be censored for national security.
NDP defence critic Jack Harris said the Conservative government has a lot to answer for when Parliament resumes sitting after the Thanksgiving break.
He pointed out two Commons committees signalled last week they intend to pickup the investigation where the police complaints commission left off.
“This thing is not going away,” he said Wednesday.
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