And here we go, courtesy of Canadian Press - note the quoted - shared with the usual disclaimer....
Pressure mounts on Conservatives to change Afghan prisoner agreement
Murray Brewster, Canadian Press, 23 Apr 07
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Allegations that Taliban prisoners captured by Canadians have been tortured in Afghan jails will be investigated, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper said Monday.
"The government is taking these allegations seriously," Harper told the Commons.
"Government officials will be following up these allegations with the government of Afghanistan to make sure they have the capacity to undertake their terms of the agreement."
In December 2005, the chief of defence staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, signed an agreement with the Afghan defence minister committing Canada to hand over captured Taliban prisoners to local authorities. But at least 30 detainees have told a national newspaper they were subjected to brutal treatment while in Afghanistan's notorious jails.
The deal has been criticized repeatedly by human rights groups because it doesn't give Canada the right to check on the condition of prisoners it has detained.
In an effort to address those concerns, the Canadian army signed a deal with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in late February that obliged the agency to notify Canada if its prisoners had been abused.
No such report has been received by Abdul Quadar Noorzai, the official in charge of the Kandahar branch of the rights commission.
"They will advise us of any abuses and we said we would provide any logistical support they need," Defence Minister
Gordon O'Connor said in a reply to storm of Opposition questions.
But the damage may already be done, say two international law professors.
The door is open for Canadian troops to be prosecuted as war criminals if enemy prisoners have indeed been tortured in Afghan jails, said
Michael Byers and
Amir Attaran.
They say the only solution is for Harper's government to scrap the current agreement with the Afghan government and for Canada to build its own prisoner detention facility overseas.
"These are the most serious allegations, they cast Canada's reputation into a serious shadow," said Byers, a human rights law professor from the University of British Columbia.
"They raise issues of criminal prosecutions, both here and abroad."
The only solution is for Canada to construct its own detention facility in Afghanistan, where prisoners can be treated humanely, he said.
"There is no room for ambiguity. We are talking about one of the most fundamental rules of international law: the prohibition on torture and the prohibition on complicity in torture," said Byers.
Where "there is a serious risk of torture, we cannot transfer to the Afghan authorities. That's it. They have shown, if this report is correct, that they cannot be trusted to uphold fundamental rules."
Their call was echoed by Liberal leader
Stephane Dion, who also repeated his demand for Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's resignation.
"We need to find a solution; it cannot be the one we have now," said Dion, who at first suggested Taliban prisoners be brought to Canada, then reconsidered the idea as unrealistic.
During the Second World War, Canada brought over 40,000 German prisoners of war to this country. Attaran said between early 2002 and May 2006 the number of captured Taliban added up to roughly 40.
With all of the billions of dollars going into the Afghan mission, Byers said the federal government can afford the cost of caring for a " few dozen" detainees.
Both Byers and Attaran raised the possibility that Canadian troops could find themselves prosecuted in foreign countries - or even here at home - if the allegations of torture are proven true.
Attaran, a University of Ottawa law professor whose research raised the possibility that detainees might also have been abused in Canadian custody, said the latest revelations are an important human rights test for the Conservative government.
He says Harper's government now has the opportunity to prove "it's not soft on torture" by halting the transfer of prisoners immediately.
Harper accused Opposition parties of caring more about Taliban prisoners than Canadian troops when the issue came up in the Commons.
But Byers said the current agreement is letting soldiers down by not protecting them from the risk of international war crimes prosecution.
New Democrat defence critic
Dawn Black says she can't understand why the Conservative government has not taken action on what is clearly a flawed agreement. Britain and the Netherlands have similar agreements, she notes, but they are allowed to check on the welfare of prisoners, where Canada is not.
Black says she has repeatedly asked the government to amend the transfer agreement, signed in December 2005 under the previous Liberal government.
In a report from Kandahar, the Globe cites 30 detainees say they were beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and given electric shocks during interrogation.
Canadian troops regularly hold detainees for a few days of questioning at Kandahar Air Field, then give them to the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's feared intelligence police.
None of the abuse in these latest allegations was inflicted by Canadians, and most enemy captives - even those who clearly sympathized with the Taliban - praised the Canadian soldiers for their politeness, their gentle handling of captives and their comfortable detention facility.
