Ottawa

In between the redactions

Sifting through Thursday’s documents, the Canadian Press leads with the account of a soldier who claimed detainee had been executed by Afghan authorities—a claim the Defence Minister’s spokesman dismisses to the Globe—but there is more.

An April 2007 report by a Foreign Affairs official who joined a Correctional Service of Canada staffer on an “exhaustive inspection” of the notorious National Directorate of Security facility in Kandahar City also cites claims of abuse. “To our surprise, even though NDS officers accompanied us throughout the visit, two prisoners nonetheless came forward with complaints of mistreatment,” the official wrote…

A February 2008 memo prepared at National Defence Headquarters by Capt. S.M. Moore noted “significant shortcomings and areas for concern with regard to the conduct of (military police) operations in Afghanistan.” Many of the problems “are systemic” and result from a lack of oversight, it says. The memo notes a survey conducted “in theatre revealed that soldiers stated they had witnessed the abuse of detainees” – yet the information was not immediately passed on to military police.

It adds that on Feb. 15, 2008, two unknown individuals approached a female military police member when she exited the shower, grabbed her arms, pushed her against the shower wall and told her: “MPs mind your own business.”

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