Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues
More info on the release of these memos was printed by The Star yesterday. You can download the state-censored memos from Maclean’s here.
Flashback: Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | 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’
Tonda MacCharles, Toronto Star
December 3, 2009
As Ottawa claimed detainees were being monitored, diplomat warned they weren’t
OTTAWA–Even as the Conservative government assured Canadians that the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission was monitoring detainees in the spring of 2007, diplomat Richard Colvin warned that the Afghan agency itself was shut out of the most notorious Afghan prisons.
A package of the Colvin memos, now leaked in both censored and uncensored forms, was released in redacted form Wednesday, and revealed new details of what the government knew and when.
It shows Colvin, then Kabul-based chargé d’affaires at the Canadian embassy, advised David Mulroney, the prime minister’s top official on Afghanistan, in writing that the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) had little or no access to the Kandahar detention facility run by Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security. NATO forces, including Canada, usually hand over their prisoners to the NDS.
“As a result, the commission is unable to monitor the condition of the detainees, as per their agreements with the Canadians, Dutch and others,” a commissioner of the Afghan monitoring agency told Colvin.
Indeed, the AIHRC was so alarmed at its lack of access that officials complained to President Hamid Karzai a week and a half earlier.
These revelations came amid other media reports that confirmed the International Red Cross had met with Canadian officials in Kandahar to deliver warnings about torture in Afghan jails, as first reported by the Star a week ago.
The concerns were relayed all the way to the office of Peter MacKay, who was then minister of foreign affairs and is now defence minister.
The memos released Wednesday show an April 23, 2007, email Colvin sent to Mulroney and other senior government officials on the Afghan file was entitled “Detainees: Urgent Demarche,” and relayed the concerns of Ahmad Zia Langari, one of nine commissioners on the Afghan monitoring commission.
The memo was sent the same day Prime Minister Stephen Harper deflected opposition criticism in the Commons over a Globe and Mail article that day on torture. His ministers downplayed the news report as something for which the government had no evidence.
On April 23, 2007, Harper said the government was aware of the Globe’s article, but said it had “signed a new detainee transfer agreement with the government of Afghanistan, with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Obviously, officials of our government will be following up these allegations with officials of the government of Afghanistan.”
Then-defence minister Gordon O’Connor said the Afghan commission “has guaranteed that it will report to us any abuses of any detainees we transfer. I have the personal assurance of the leader of the human rights commission in Kandahar and the national level.”
MacKay then said the published allegations “have not been confirmed by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. We are looking into the issue.”
MacKay has said he wasn’t briefed until May 2007 on Colvin’s emails.
On April 23, 2007, The Globe and Mail, citing 30 face-to-face interviews with detainees, revealed Afghans transferred to the custody of the Afghan intelligence police were beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and jolted with electric shocks. The article also cited overall concerns of the AIHRC regional officials in Kandahar about torture.
The next day, after the paper reported that AIHRC’s regional head of investigations conceded his staff could not get into NDS prisons, Harper again denied the government had any prior knowledge of the information.
“Until now, we did not have the information that is being reported today in the papers. If there are problems, the government will work with the independent Afghan commission to solve them,” he said.
O’Connor said of the AIHRC that “our people are in constant contact with them and they have not asked for any help. They are on sort of a regular basis meeting with them but they have not asked for any help because they believe they can do what they have been tasked to do.”
In fact, according to the Colvin emails, the AIHRC had clearly signalled it needed help and could not accomplish its mandate of monitoring prisoners handed over by Canadian forces.
Source | See also under Torture: Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | UK: Rights watchdog reveals Pakistani spies pressed by British to torture detainees | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Guantanamo won’t close by January: Obama | Israelis Want a Pain Ray of Their Own | UK soldier testifies comrades beat Iraqi to death | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | U.S. court denies Maher Arar’s appeal | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Portable heat ray weapon may end up in police hands | Guantanamo January closing deadline may slip | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Iraq shoe thrower released from jail, testifies to brutal torture | Sonic weapons used in Iraq positioned at congressional townhall meetings in San Diego county | CIA doctors face human experimentation claims | U.S. probes ‘inhumane’ CIA tactics under Bush | US justice department to investigate CIA over interrogation methods | Obama approves new interrogation unit | UK: New evidence in Binyam Mohamed torture case | UK: Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed | UK: CIA ‘put pressure on Britain to cover up its use of torture’ | Microwave weapon will rain pain from the sky | Abdelrazik accuses CSIS, MPs of harassment and interrogation | Pentagon-handpicked 9/11 families want Gitmo kept open | CSIS ignored Khadr’s human rights: Parliamentary report | ‘They were looking for the ideal Manchurian Candidate’ | Revealed – the secret torture evidence MI5 tried to suppress | Guantanamo’s closure window dressing – overseas CIA ‘black sites’ to stay | ‘If I didn’t confess to 7/7 bombings MI5 officers would rape my wife,’ claims torture victim | MPs call for clear policy against torture | New video shows officer shove, then taser 72-year-old great grandmother | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | Gitmo protest captured on film | MI5 faces fresh torture allegations | Skepticism greets launch of Afghan detainee inquiry | Government Experiments on U.S. Soldiers: Shocking Claims Come to Light in New Court Case | Supreme Court of Canada won’t hear Afghan detainee torture case | Reversing himself, Obama seeks to block abuse photos | British soldiers ‘tortured and murdered 20 Iraqis, then covered it up with firefight claim’ | CIA waterboarded 2 al-Qaida suspects 266 times | UK: Government makes ‘unprecedented’ apology for covering up Binyam torture | Psychologists Helped Guide CIA Interrogations | Mumbai attacks suspect alleges torture, retracts confession | Obama publishes torture memos, protects perpetrators | Obama Tilts to CIA on Torture Memos | Document lays bare CIA torture techniques | CSIS chief backpedals on earlier torture statement, claims long-term official ‘misspoke’ | CSIS won’t rule out tips derived from torture | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Rights groups press for better security oversight | Head of RCMP unit that framed Arar promoted to Assistant Commissioner | Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’ | CIA destroyed 92 interview tapes | Tortured Guantanamo detainee set free | UK agents ‘colluded with torture in Pakistan’ | Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners | U.K. resident held at Gitmo alleges Canadian involvement in torture | Senior judges attack US over ‘torture evidence suppression’ | After Obama praises torture ruling, civil liberties group appalled | Ban stun gun use on young people, Ontario child advocate urges | 24 star Keifer Sutherland opposed to torture, questions role of series in inspiring interrogations | RCMP destroyed evidence, charges dismissed in second torture case for officers | Obama shuts network of CIA ‘ghost prisons’ | Vets Sue CIA Over Mind Control Tests | US police could get ‘pain beam’ weapons | George Bush shoe-thrower ‘too severely beaten’ for court appearance | Conspiracy against Arar reached to highest levels, U.S. court told | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | UK Home Secretary orders inquiry into MI5 and CIA torture claims | Tortured trio say report ‘vindicates us’ | Ottawa given evidence of torture, official says | Torture Tactics Endorsed in Secret White House Memos | Tasers being used for pain compliance during interrogation, suit alleges | Lawyers say UK Guantánamo suspect has no hope of fair trial | Defiant military watchdog widens detainee hearings | CSIS faces review in Khadr case | RCMP lays no charges in Maher Arar ‘terrorist’ leaks, declares case closed | Protesters push for Omar Khadr’s release | ‘You don’t care about me,’ Omar Khadr sobs in interview tapes | Remembering Brainwashing | Chinese Torture Techniques Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo | US Counterinsurgency Manual Leaked, Calls for False Flag Operations, Suspension of Human Rights | Torture was expected in ‘top-down’ decision to deport Arar: lawyer | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | CSIS suspected U.S. would deport Arar to be tortured: documents | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’ | Canadian MKULTRA project mind control victim to tell of pills, shocks, brainwashing
December 10th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
[...] Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
kind of funny when you live the province of BC where the RCMP kill people with Tasers (vancouver) and shoot prisoners ( Dawson Creek I believe)
December 18th, 2009 at 6:33 am
[...] torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
December 18th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
[...] torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
December 21st, 2009 at 2:43 am
[...] Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | U.S. police taser 10-year-old | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
December 21st, 2009 at 3:32 am
[...] torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
December 21st, 2009 at 5:27 am
[...] release Afghan torture documents | Tories, Liberals, Bloc approve HST for Ontario and B.C. | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | Liberals to [...]
December 24th, 2009 at 5:35 am
[...] torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
December 31st, 2009 at 9:41 am
[...] release Afghan torture documents | Tories, Liberals, Bloc approve HST for Ontario and B.C. | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | Liberals to [...]
January 27th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
[...] release Afghan torture documents | Tories, Liberals, Bloc approve HST for Ontario and B.C. | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | Liberals to [...]
February 24th, 2010 at 8:51 am
[...] Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | U.S. police taser 10-year-old | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
February 27th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
[...] Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | U.S. police taser 10-year-old | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote [...]
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:16 pm
[...] release Afghan torture documents | Tories, Liberals, Bloc approve HST for Ontario and B.C. | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | Liberals to [...]