Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Skipping as if towards freedom

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, April 8, 2010 1:20pm - 15 Comments

As Canwest notes, Sgt. Carol Utton testified this week at a Military Police Complaints Commission that detainees were “delighted” to be handed off to the NDS.

Unnoted is the explanation, provided by Sgt. Utton a few questions later, as to why detainees might be so eager. The following is from a transcript of Sgt. Utton’s testimony provided to reporters last night.

Q. You mentioned some of the detainees were quite happy—quite happy might be overstating it. I don’t suppose anybody would be quite happy to go off to prison, but they didn’t protest at being turned over—

A. Never.

Q. —to the NDS. Do you know why?

A. I believe because they could be bought out of the Afghan jails.

Q. They saw it as a way of getting a quick release?

A. I believe that is a way of life in the Afghan system. It is so corrupt that if you had enough money you could buy people out of jail.

Tags: Afghanistan, Carol Utton, detainees, Military Police Complaints Commission, MPCC, torture, transfers

More by Aaron Wherry

Reader

Sorta like Mr. Jaffer? ;-)
http://unambig.com Adrian MacNair

Hardly news. The Taliban can buy themselves out of prisons if they're not high-value targets. Afghans have known this fact for decades. Jesus.

John

Oh well that makes this all better. Our troops are dying to capture terrorists who are then simply released.

http://unambig.com Adrian MacNair

Oh now they're terrorists? I thought they were all innocent farmers…

FVerhoeven

Quick catch! Kudos
http://intensedebate.com/people/YYZ YYZ

Let me be perfectly clear: When the Conservatives are defending torture allegations they are "terrorists" to Conservatives and "Farmers" to Liberals. When they are escaping, they're "terrorists" to Liberals and "farmers" to conservatives.

Wascally Wabbit

Well naughty Canwest! Hands caught in the spindryer! What to do to a news agency that "mangles" the facts?
Appoint them official spokes-organization for the Harper CPC Government I suppose!

Anon ABC

You look for Senators to appoint from among their ranks.

wsam

It's their culture.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Ottawa_Centrist Ottawa_Centrist

Afghanistan or Canwest?

Guest

I suspected as much.

Either let go because they were poor, and cost more to keep than they were worth, or because they were better off and could be ransomed.

I doubt 'guilt or innocence' came into it at all
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

So instead of worrying that they'd be tortured, the prisoners were elated at the prospect of a "get out of jail" card. Yeesh.
tobyornottoby

Maybe they were just relieved they wouldn't have to drink any more Tim Horton's coffee.
http://www.pogge.ca skdadl

Wow. Akin — shameless, eh?
FVerhoeven

Carol Utton's testamony is interesting.

But this is interesting too:

"Utton is not a “subject” of the complaint but some of her colleagues are and, though the proceeding before the MPCC is not a trial, Amnesty’s lawyer voiced concerns that Utton and other witnesses may have been pressured or coerced into shaping their testimony. Lawyers for the military police rejected that claim and, in any event, that argument was left unresolved Tuesday but is likely to resurface later."

On and on, and on, and on, and on……