Canadian officials reported Afghan torture allegations, Tories now revealMurray Brewster, Canadian Press
Published: Tuesday, May 01, 2007
OTTAWA (CP) - The Conservative government conceded Monday that it has received reports from Canadian officials about alleged torture in Afghan jails.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says Corrections Canada officers in Kandahar have heard at least two first-hand allegations of abuse. "Yes, they have actually talked to detainees about the possibility if they were tortured or not," Day said early Monday in response to a reporter's question. "They actually had a couple of incidents where detainees said they were."
It is the first time a senior minister has admitted clearly that Canadian officials were informed of specific abuse allegations. Day said the claims came to light last week when he spoke by phone with staff overseas.
Corrections Canada has had two officers in Kandahar since early February, mentoring Afghan prison guards.
Day said the officers had no evidence to back up the abuse claims, but didn't say if an investigation had been conducted. "The officers saw no physical marks or anything else to substantiate the allegations," he said in a telephone interview late Monday.
Last week, Day made passing reference in the Commons to complaints corrections officers received from detainees about being shackled in leg irons, but he didn't elaborate.
Day has long insisted that the allegations of abuse were lies made up by captured insurgents, despite the fact that no probe has been completed.
Asked whether the prisoners in question were handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops, Day replied: "I don't have that precise information, but we'll look into it and we'll get back to you."
Since allegations that Canadian-captured prisoners were allegedly abused first surfaced last week, the Conservatives have issued a series of confusing and contradictory responses.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said that with specific allegations now in hand, the Conservatives can no longer "cling to the fiction" that it was unaware of what may have been happening in Afghan jails.
"This demonstrates the government has not been forthcoming with Canadians," he said. "It underlines now the importance of stopping the transfer of detainees."
Liberal foreign affairs critic Ujjal Dosanjh said he's troubled that Day didn't have more facts, especially about whether these two individuals had initially been Canadian responsibility. "This show me that this government is not interested in living up to our moral and legal obligation to protect the detainees we arrest and we transfer," he said.
The Tories changed their strategy on Monday, toning down their claims that the allegations of abuse were fabricated.
However, Prime Minister Stephen Harper maintained that there was no evidence of abuse.
"As I've said many times, the government takes these allegations seriously," Harper said.
"We have agreements with the government of Afghanistan and also with the Afghan independent human rights commission. The knowledge we have at this point is that those agreements are operating as they should." The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said on Sunday that it had catalogued cases of torture in Kandahar jails by the country's notorious intelligence service in 2004, but never shared those reports because they did not involve Canadians.
The government has received other reports of abuse in Afghan jails.
International law not only forbids the torture of prisoners, but makes it a war crime to transfer them to countries where they face even the possibility of abuse.
Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff told the Commons that the government had lost control of the situation and again called for the resignation of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who was not in the Commons on Monday.
His absence renewed a flurry of speculation, which started last week, that O'Connor was about to step down.
Unsolicited, his communications officers issued this terse e-mail note to reporters: "If any of you give credit to the rumour that (the minister of national defence) will resign, (you) will look (stupid). It is not true, he will NOT resign."
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