Canada halts transfers of Afghan prisoners

[CHIMO]

The Harper government quietly stopped transferring prisoners into Afghan custody months ago after compelling evidence of torture was discovered, the government admitted Wednesday on the eve of a federal court hearing.

The government kept the its decision under wraps, even as it prepared to fight rights groups seeking a halt to transfers and as it tried to drum up public support for extending Canada's commitment to wage war on the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

In early November, a prisoner told Canadian diplomats in an interrogation room in a secret police jail in Kandahar that he had been beaten and then told them where they could find the electrical cable and rubber hose used by his torturers. The Canadians found them beneath a chair.

It's not clear whether Canadian troops are still taking prisoners only to release them or whether – despite the claims of senior generals – they are being held for months in the temporary cells run by Canadian Military Police on Kandahar Air Base or whether prisoners are being turned over to U.S. forces, which do operate a big prison at Bagram in Afghanistan.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080123.wkoring0123/BNStory/Afghanistan/home

[Bragi]

1. Well.

Why wasn't this reported in the media on November 6th, or at the very latest the 7th?

It wasn't disclosed for two months, I'll guess, on the grounds that there was civil litigation against the Crown going on which made disclosure the thing not to do.

So what. That's what lawyers and judges are for. Why was important information about how Canada was handling detainees not disclosed in a timely manner, timely being defined as as something other than two months later, the night before a milestone event in the legal dispute going on?

- B