愛污传媒

Afghanistan's intelligence service tortured every detainee handed over to them by Canadian soldiers in 2006-2007, including innocent people, a federal official testified today.

Intelligence officer Richard Colvin, who was the political officer at the Canadian-run provincial reconstruction base when Canadian troops began transferring prisoners to Afghan authorities three years ago, told a special Commons committee that many of those prisoners were also likely innocent.

"According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured," he said.

"For interrogators in Kandahar, it was standard operating procedure."

According to Colvin, Afghans detained by Canadian troops and then transferred to Afghan custody in 2006 and early 2007 were beaten and suffered electric shocks.

Over a three-month period in 2006, the Red Cross tried to warn Canadian military officials in Kandahar about the abuse, but no one would "even take their phone calls," Colvin said.

He also testified that that majority of prisoners were not "high-value targets" like Taliban commanders. Instead, many were farmers or peasants who were simply "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"In other words, we detained, and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people," he testified.

Colvin criticized the civilian and military leadership for the legal framework that made the transfers possible -- he was careful not to blame Canadian soldiers working on the ground.

He also told the committee that he was later ordered not to write about prisoners in his reports, which were eventually "censored."

After learning of torture allegations, Colvin wrote to Ottawa throughout 2006 and into the following year, warning of torture in Afghan jails.

The reports he wrote were widely circulated in the Foreign Affairs and Defence departments, yet senior members of the Conservative government -- including Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- say they did not see them in 2006.

Last month, Defence Minister Peter MacKay promised to investigate how far up the chain those reports went.

On Wednesday, Conservatives attacked Colvin's credibility and the evidence he personally gathered from detainees.

"It's all coming from people who are trained to give false information," MP Laurie Hawn said of the detainees.

"It might not have been torture; it might have been some other sort of injury," said MP Peter Goldring.

Colvin was previously subpoenaed to appear before a more limited probe by the independent Military Police Complaints Commission earlier this year. But Colvin was limited in what he could say after federal lawyers placed a national security gag on much of his testimony.

Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, the party's defence critic, said the special committee on Afghanistan seeks to "look at the Colvin reports and reports about allegations of torture and what the government did with them."

"The need for the committee to hear this matter arose because we think the hearing of the Military Police Complaints Commission, with respect to allegations of torture, was being obstructed, either directly or indirectly by the government," Dosanjh told 愛污传媒 Channel from Ottawa on Wednesday morning.

But Kory Teneycke, the prime minister's former communications director, said that the Conservative government "put in place many steps to ensure the adequate treatment" of Afghan prisoners.

"The conditions in those prisons aren't going to look like the golf and country club-style prisons that the Liberals and NDP favour here in Canada. They are going to look like what one would expect in Afghanistan," said Teneycke, when appearing on 愛污传媒 Channel at the same time as Dosanjh.

Furthermore, the government had a firm belief that "reasonable steps were taken and reasonable safeguards put in place," to keep any detainees safe, Teneycke said.

In Question Period in the House of Commons Wednesday, Liberal MPs continued to accuse the Harper government of receiving and ignoring reports of torture and deplorable conditions in Afghan prisons.

Liberal MP Bob Rae said Colvin wrote a so-called "action memorandum" after a visit to Afghanistan in 2006, in which he found the condition of Afghan detainees "to be serious, imminent and alarming."

"The simple fact of the matter is, is that there was an 18-month period -- not a month, not six weeks, not eight weeks -- 18 months in which this government had information and did nothing and performed no action whatsoever," Rae said. "How can you explain 18 months of inaction dealing with something as serious as first-hand evidence of torture by a Canadian public official?"

MacKay responded that the Tories acted to improve prison conditions on recommendations from Canadian officials two-and-a-half years ago.

"We improved upon regular visitations to see that conditions were in fact improving," MacKay said. "We invested in the prison system infrastructure itself, we improved upon the transfer arrangement, we continue to make those investments."

The torture issue was reignited Tuesday when The Canadian Press reported that defence and foreign affairs sources claimed the Conservative government ordered them to hold back information in their own reports in 2007.

The unnamed sources told The Canadian Press that the government feared the backlash that would result from graphic reports, even if they were censored.

The orders to quiet the story were given over the telephone by Privy Council Office senior officials, the sources said, and reinforced in follow-up conferences between Ottawa and Kabul, as well as Ottawa and Kandahar.

In Question Period, Dosanjh asked: "Who in the government issued this order, why is this government creating a culture, an un-Canadian culture, of secrecy and cover-up around an issue as serious as torture?"

Peter Kent, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, called the question "outrageous" and said there was "no evidence" that the government ordered diplomats to withhold information about torture.

With files from The Canadian Press