Senior policeman tells inquiry his forces were focused on Canadian troops
Though Canadian troops were keen to make sure Afghan detainees weren’t subjected to abuse while in their custody, that concern didn’t extend to how they’d be treated once in Afghan authorities’ hands. According to a senior military policeman testifying before the Military Complaints Commission, Canadian soldiers didn’t consider preventing Afghans from torturing detainees part of their job. “My military policemen had more than enough to do with their own responsibilities,” Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Boot told the commission Thursday. “We didn’t need to go looking for work.” Boot says the military was instead eager to avoid a repeat of the Somalia scandal, in which a Somali teenager was killed while in Canadian custody. “Our focus was much more on: were [Canadian] soldiers abusing.”