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Canwest News Service
OTTAWA – Three generals declared Wednesday that there was no mention of the word "torture" in reports from a senior diplomat who asserts that he repeatedly warned the government against surrendering Afghan detainees to local authorities because they would almost certainly be abused.
Retired Gen. Rick Hillier led the military defence as he denounced Richard Colvin's allegations that the government and the military turned a blind eye to widespread torture in Afghan jails as "ludicrous" and "absolutely untrue."
The former general, who was Canada's top soldier during Colvin's posting in Afghanistan in 2006-07, said he has reread all of the diplomat's widely circulated reports to ensure that Colvin's alleged concerns did not escape his notice the first time around.
"There was simply nothing there," Hillier told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan. "There was nothing there to warrant the intervention of the chief of defence staff."
The government is considering releasing Colvin's reports this week, apparently backing down from attempts to prevent him from supplying documentary evidence to the Commons committee to support his damning testimony last week.
Colvin, now deputy head of intelligence at the Canadian embassy in Washington, says he wrote more than one dozen reports while he was posted in Afghanistan, beginning in May 2006, when he warned of "serious, imminent and alarming" problems about the treatment of detainees following their transfer by Canadian troops.
One of the recipients of the widely distributed reports, which Colvin says were copied to 76 government and military personnel in Ottawa and Afghanistan, was retired Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, who was then the head of oversees deployment.
Gauthier told the Commons committee that none of Colvin's 2006 reports, including his May document, mentioned anything about torture, save for a single mention of the word in a December report, but that the reference "cannot be interpreted as a warning of torture.
"His reports say no such thing," Gauthier said. "I can say to you that contrary to assertions there is no mention of torture or the risk of torture."
Gauthier said that the first time that he heard that Canadian soldiers had handed over suspected insurgents who were then tortured in local jails was a year later, in April 2007, when allegations from detainees surfaced in Canadian media reports.
Maj.-Gen. David Fraser, who led troops in Afghanistan during Colvin's 17- month posting, concurred that he received no information about the abuse of detainees "and if I did I would have done something about it."
He also noted that a Canadian contingent, including Colvin, visited a Kandahar prison in 2006 and that there was nothing in their report that raised any concerns.
Opposition critics said that the discrepancy in testimony highlights the need for a public inquiry.
"Let's get on with it," said NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar.
Hillier acknowledged that while he heard of no specific allegations of torture, that he was well aware of wide reports from international human rights agencies that torture was routine in Afghan jails.
"How could you not be aware of individuals saying that everything was bad and the sky was falling?" asked Hillier, adding that his job was to "balance the specifics against the generalities, which had no substance."
Canada temporarily suspended prisoner transfers in November 2007, a day after Canadian personnel visiting a Kandahar jail spotted electrical wires and other evidence of torture during a monitoring visits.
Followup visits with Afghan jails began in May 2007, when Canada strengthened a 2005 transfer-of-prisoners arrangement.
The military testimony came one day after Colvin's lawyer, Lori Bokenfohr, wrote the all-party committee warning members that Colvin was advised by the Justice Department that he would be breaking the law if he supplied documents to the committee, which members had requested last week.
The committee passed a motion Wednesday calling on the government to release documentation. Harper has said the government will supply everything that is legally available, but he has declined to elaborate.
Colvin was called before the Commons committee after revealing the existence of his reports last month in an affidavit to the Military Police Complaints Commission, which is probing the role of military police in surrendering detainees.
Colvin, in his affidavit, wrote that he copied 76 recipients on his reports warning that Canada was handing over to Afghan control suspected Taliban insurgents who were later tortured.
He was the political head of the Canadian-led provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar when he first arrived in Afghanistan in the spring of 2006. He also served as acting ambassador during his stint.
He also told the committee last week that many of the detainees captured by Canadian troops were innocents who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, an allegation that Hillier denounced as "ludicrous" and beyond what Colvin could possibly know.
Colvin also implicated his superiors at Foreign Affairs for turning their backs on his torture allegations and he told the committee in a letter, dated Tuesday, that at least some of his reports were sent to the office of the minister, who was Peter MacKay at the time.
The Toronto Star reported Wednesday that Colvin sent e-mails to MacKay's office in the spring of 2006 expressing alarm over the treatment of Afghan detainees on behalf of the International Red Cross Committee. He also reportedly bemoaned the Red Cross's concern about delays in notifying the humanitarian agency when the military transferred prisoners, hampering the ability to track them under Afghan control. The e-mails reflected his testimony last week that Canada was slow to notify the Red Cross of transfers and the personnel would not take the agency's calls for three months in 2006.
MacKay has denied knowing anything about Colvin or his reports, but he acknowledged Wednesday that "I received briefings from the deputy minister and there were attachments to which Mr. Colvin was a contributor but I have not received direct reports from Mr. Colvin."
