Source:
New York TimesCanadian Military Has Quit Turning Detainees Over to Afghans By IAN AUSTEN
Published: January 24, 2008
OTTAWA — The Canadian military secretly stopped transferring prisoners to Afghanistan’s government in November after Canadian monitors found evidence that they were being abused and tortured. The government’s internal concerns about detainees is also at odds with Canadian officials’ repeated public statements that the Afghan government does not engage in systematic torture.
“The denials and political posturing and name-calling that have gone on over this at various points is very disheartening when all along there’s been this information,” said Alex Neve, the head of Amnesty International’s Canadian branch.
- snip -
“The government’s recognition that the transfers have ceased raises more questions than it answers,” Mr. Gretl said from Vancouver, British Columbia. He said the Canadian forces “may have transferred them to some third country, and we don’t know under what conditions the Canadian government would resume transfers.”
- snip -
The reports show that the monitors found that several detainees had been beaten and threatened during Afghan interrogations. In one report, the monitors said one prisoner told them he had been beaten with cables and wires and received electrical shocks. “He showed us a number of scars on his legs which he said were caused by the beating,” they wrote. Another detainee, who said he was beaten and who had signs of injury, told the diplomatic visitors to look under a chair in the room in which they were meeting. “Under the chair we found a large piece of braided electrical cable as well as a rubber hose,” the report said.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/world/americas/24canada.html?_r=1&oref=slogin