A senior Canadian military officer who helped manage the early days of Canada's combat mission in Kandahar has admitted torture likely occurred in Afghanistan prisons, but says reports of abuse were overblown.
Maj.-Gen. Mike Ward told the Military Police Complaints Commission in Ottawa on Thursday that he didn't think the Canadian military had a responsibility for detainees it captured after they were passed to Afghan authorities.
Ward was a senior staff officer at the Canadian military headquarters responsible for Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006.
During his testimony, he said whatever happened to Canadian-caught detainees after they were transferred to Afghan authorities in those years was beyond the military's limited legal responsibility.
"It was ensuring that while those detainees were in our custody, nothing untoward happened to them," he said of Canada's role.
Even though the Canadian government has since negotiated a new transfer agreement with Afghanistan that allows Canadian officials to monitor detainees, Ward said Canada still doesn't have to do it.
"I'm not sure that there's an explicit — not that I've seen — an explicit acknowledgment by the Government of Canada that we are responsible for post-transfer," he told the commission.
Human rights law suggests Canada has a responsibility not to transfer detainees if they face a serious risk of torture, let alone if torture is an established fact.
Ward also described the Afghan National Directorate of Security, the spy service known as the NDS, as a "highly thought of organization," despite widespread reports of torture.
"If you had to deal with an agency of government, the NDS was the best step at that point of time," he said.
Well I just think that this is all rubbish, and when he says the NDS is a highly thougt of organization is fucking criminal. I've known Mike Ward for many years and I suspect now as a seniour officer he is just towing the party line..
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment