CSIS and the NDS

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 4:38 PM - 7 Comments

The Security Intelligence Review Committee has released its review of how CSIS handled Afghan detainees and its relationship with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security.

The Service’s relationship with the NDS consisted of [REDCATED] exchanges of information, [REDACTED].

Notwithstanding this productive working relationship, CSIS’s assessment of the NDS was both cautious and measured. [REDACTED] CSIS continued to stress that most allegations of human rights abuses were unconfirmed, [REDACTED].

In the course of this review, SIRC found no indication that in the period during which they conducted detainee interviews, CSIS officers posted to Afghanistan ever had firsthand knowledge of abuse, mistreatment or torture of detainees by Afghan authorities.

‘The likelihood was very high’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at 6:42 PM - 0 Comments

Stephane Dion, the Liberal MP on the ad hoc committee, offers his take on what he saw in the documents.

Canadian troops had always acted professionally, Dion said, but the government had failed to track the detainees it was transferring. When it finally did send inspectors to check on the detainees, the inspections were inadequate — at times even erratic, he said. ”They were not sufficient to really protect these hundreds of people,” Dion said.

Most concerning to him was the fact that Canadian officials kept transferring troops to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security despite having concerns about its reputation for abuse. ”It is very troubling that there is a case — not many cases but one case — where an individual has been arrested by us and . . . transferred to NDS for future questioning,” Dion said. “I checked to find out what we may know of this individual and I found out . . . (that) the interrogation by the NDS, gave an allegation by this individual of abuse — that he has been slapped in the face many times and threatened to be killed. Elsewhere, we find out that the Canadian officials confirm that we do not check how the NDS do its questioning,” the former Liberal leader added.

The Commons: Lawrence Cannon's lips are sealed

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 6:39 PM - 16 Comments

The Scene. It is entirely possible that when all has been, said, done, investigated and disclosed that Canadian officials will be found to have done a largely admirable job of handling, seizing, transferring and monitoring those individuals detained during this country’s mission in Afghanistan—and that that conclusion will do very little to redeem this government’s various cabinet ministers for the various things they have said about the matter these last four and a half years. To understand why is to get at perhaps the central paradox of so much about this place and these times: the serious, complex nature of modern problems set against the increasingly simplistic, largely evasive way we seem compelled to talk about those problems.

The latest cause for incoherence is a report from the CBC, based on a secret government briefing note, that Canada has been transferring children to Afghan authorities. For sure, this sort of news raises all sorts of complicated questions about law, human rights, war and foreign affairs. For sure, none of these complicated questions will ever properly be addressed here.

Here though stood Thomas Mulcair, the first to state for the benefit of the House a series of varyingly inflammatory questions—”Why is Canada transferring children to the Afghan torturers, NDS? How many children have been arrested? How many children have been transferred? How many children have been tortured?”—to which he couldn’t possibly have expected to receive answers. Continue…

What we now know

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 3:17 PM - 0 Comments

Detainee transfers were halted in May 2009 after an Afghan intelligence officer bragged of torture. Two allegations of mistreatment from later that year have now come to light.

Military Police Complaints Commission hearings have resumed and, while testifying, a Canadian general defended Afghanistan’s NDS (“these are not torture chambers per se”). After reviewing new documents, the CBC figures Canada has transferred in excess of 400 detainees to Afghan authorities. The Hill Times reports that the government was preparing in 2007 to deal with difficult questions.

Meanwhile, the Brits have completed their own review of detainee policy and practice.

Take their word for it

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 5, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

Two new allegations of detainee abuse come to light in British court proceedings.

Canadian officials say the abuse allegations, from last summer, were promptly investigated and found groundless: An internal probe by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security exonerated the NDS interrogator involved. They contend the handling of the allegations demonstrates that Canadian safeguards in detecting claims of abuse and demanding investigations are working…

In a series of exchanges with The Globe and Mail, both the Canadian Forces and the Foreign Affairs Department declined to provide any substantiation or documents, from either the initial follow-up visit that produced the allegations of abuse or the subsequent NDS investigation that dismissed them, to buttress the conclusion that the Afghan detainees had lied about being beaten and that the interrogators had been properly investigated and cleared.

'Further questioning'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 7:00 PM - 13 Comments

In his letter to the Afghanistan committee late last week, Gen. Walter Natynczyk wrote that “Canadian Forces do not transfer individuals for the purposes of gathering information.” In a letter sent today, the NDP’s Paul Dewar and Jack Harris have asked Gen. Natynczyk to clarify this point.

Specifically, Messrs. Dewar and Harris want to know how to square the general’s statement with an October 2007 document they’ve obtained. The document is described as a transfer report and it reads, in part:

“During the interview conducted, it is believe (sic) that all the detainees were deceptive and they have a better knowledge on TB (Taliban) activity in their area. Based upon the above, it is recommended that [names of detainees] be transferred to the National Directorate of Security (NOS) for further questioning”.

The NDP is not making said document public as yet. But Mr. Dewar did raise it during committee hearings last week. He presented it to Malgarai Ahmadshah, a former translator for the Canadian Forces, and Mr. Ahmadshah explained the document as follows. Continue…

Potentially explosive

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 4:39 PM - 38 Comments

A former translator has just concluded rather dramatic testimony at the special committee on Afghanistan.

An Afghan-Canadian who served as translator to Canada’s military levelled potentially explosive allegations at a Commons committee today, saying Canadian troops transferred “innocent” men to Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service and once shot an unarmed man in the back of the head.

Malgarai Ahmadshah, adviser to the former commander of Canada’s Joint Task Force Afghanistan unit, was speaking to MPs probing the detainee issue and this country’s relationship with the Afghan National Directorate of Security…Mr. Ahmadshah also alleged the Canadian government transferred detainees to the NDS with the understanding they would be abused in order to extract more intelligence information from them. “They were subcontracting torture,” he said.

More from the CBC, Sun and Canadian Press.

The risk

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 11:32 AM - 34 Comments

CBC gets hold of a summer 2009 warning about Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security.

The Conservative government was warned last summer that working with the Afghan secret police would lead to allegations Canada condoned abuse and that Canadians could face legal liability for complicity in torture. The information, contained in a candid top-level government memo shared with CBC News, shows that officials were worried that Canada’s relationship with the Afghan National Directorate of Security was risky — and possibly illegal — even while the government was defending it.

The document warns that the directorate, or NDS, is so secretive, even Canada and its allies are in the dark about much of what it does. The NDS has wider powers of arrest and detention than most intelligence agencies, the memo says, and as a result, “there is considerable scope for the use of improper methods.” Engaging with the NDS “entails a degree of risk to Canadian interests,” it adds.

Terry Milewski’s full report is here.

'You have your law, we have ours'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 11:47 AM - 11 Comments

The government has tabled another 6,200 pages of detainee documents today. As with last week’s documents, these were not reviewed by Justice Frank Iacobucci, the respected jurist theoretically hired to do just that and cited yesterday by the Justice Minister as the solution to the government’s current standoff with Parliament.

Meanwhile, CBC gets hold of an uncensored report about Afghan attempts to block detainee inspections.

The Afghan human rights agency was appointed by Canada to be its eyes and ears in Afghan prisons at the time. The rights group was supposed to help ensure the safety of detainees who had been transferred from Canadian troops to the Afghans. The Afghan security service, the NDS, took those detainees from the Canadians. The uncensored version of the document states there were “… five failed attempts to access Kandahar NDS facilities in 2007.”

The document says the NDS response on detainee access was often, “You have your law, we have ours.” It says Afghan human rights experts “discussed the access problem with [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai … however, this did not help.”

'We hope this will minimize any disruption'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 11:45 AM - 8 Comments

Within a “tranche” of previously undisclosed documents, the Globe finds an unmet pledge to build a prison in Afghanistan and a dispute between Afghan and NATO officials over access to detainees.

The NDS chief also complained bitterly to Canada, Britain and the Netherlands that their follow-up inspections aimed at making sure prisoners weren’t being transferred to torture – an international war crime – were creating problems in the prisons. Unexpected and multiple inspection visits were unwelcome, he wrote, and infringed on Afghan sovereignty.

Mr. Saleh threatened to cut-off inspections and – apparently seeking to appease the NDS chief – the three countries agreed to only conduct joint visits with plenty of advance notice and limit them to once a month at most. “We hope this will minimize any disruption caused by our access to your facilities and allow access arrangements to resume,” Canada, Britain and the Netherlands said in their written response to Mr. Saleh. “As the three main nations who transfer detainees over to NDS custody, we have discussed how best to respond to your concerns,” the letter says.

What might have been

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 1:52 PM - 14 Comments

Canadian Press delves into a proposed, but ultimately rejected, plan to put the Afghan army in charge of detainees.

NATO allies lobbied Afghan’s president for a separate legal framework to handle prisoners captured around Kandahar in late 2006 but those efforts “went nowhere,” say internal memos. The records outline an early strategy of the Canadian government as it faced pressure from the International Red Cross and others to take more responsibility for captured Taliban fighters…

The idea was to let the fledgling Afghan army operate a detention facility built by the U.S. rather than rely on either the National Directorate of Security or the country’s shaky correctional system. The proposal included a demand that Afghanistan create a separate legal framework for terror suspects, similar to the U.S. system of military tribunals. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was pressed to carve out “a new detainee policy that would have made the Afghan army responsible for prisoners and created a new class of detainees, but efforts have gone nowhere,” says a Dec. 4, 2006, memo.

The Commons: Adjust your cuffs and carry on

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 8, 2010 at 5:18 PM - 101 Comments

The Scene. “Mr. Speaker,” the Liberal leader began, “every day there are new allegations about Afghan detainees.”

The Conservatives across the way groaned and moaned their agreement.

“Recently we have seen reports about the role of CSIS in interrogation and detainee transfers. These are disturbing reports but the government keeps holding back the truth,” Mr. Ignatieff continued. “It has now appointed Justice Iacobucci, for whom we have great respect—”

The Conservatives cheered, perhaps prematurely.

“We share those sentiments entirely,” Mr. Ignatieff continued pointing his left index finger slightly, “but if he does not have the power, if he does not have the authority, if he only sees what the government wants him to see, how can he get at the truth? Why will the Prime Minister not do the right thing and appoint a full public inquiry?”

This question would go unacknowledged as the Prime Minister stood, adjusted his left cuff, and ventured his own version of events. Continue…

'The Canadians saw with their own eyes'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 1:04 PM - 16 Comments

A former Afghan prison warden talks to Canwest.

Some Taliban prisoners who were transferred two or three years ago to Sarpoza Prison by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security bore signs that they had been tortured, the former warden told Canwest News Service on Monday. But Canadian soldiers went to great lengths to try to ensure that prisoners who they had detained and handed over to the NDS were not abused, said Abdul Qadar Khan Popal.

“At the time, John, from the Canadian side, was looking after prisoners that were in NDS custody and was always complaining to the NDS because the prisoners had told him they were tortured,” Popal said. “He tried to bring them out of NDS custody and into Sarpoza as quickly as he could because he understood the situation.

“The Canadians saw with their own eyes and asked the prisoners if they had any complaints. The Canadians minded very strongly when the prisoners complained and advised us not to mistreat anyone. The explained to us about human rights and told us how to treat prisoners, especially political ones.”