Board of Inquiry

Earlier this week, I posted the thoughts of Sebastien Jodoin of Amnesty International in response to the recent Board of Inquiry report. I then wrote to the offices of General Walter Natynczyk and Defence Minister Peter MacKay and offered to post any response to Mr. Jodoin’s comments. Today, a letter arrived from Rear-Admiral Davidson.

Sebastien Jodoin, a law fellow at Amnesty International who is participating in the Military Police Complaints Commission proceedings, sent along some unsolicited thoughts on the BOI report late last week. When I asked if I might post those thoughts here, he sent along more thoughts.

As Rear Admiral P.A. Maddison explained yesterday, there was apparently belief among Canadian Forces that violence was a “cultural norm” among Afghan authorities, but there was no “observation” or “expectation” that detainees were being abused.

The BOI report into the incident of June 14, 2006 is available here. The following is parts E and F of the findings.

The Board of Inquiry report into the events of June 14, 2006 “detainee incident” is due to be released this afternoon.

The Prime Minister responds to last night’s CBC report.

CBC obtains the contingency plan the government prepared to deal with public accusations of torture in Afghanistan.

For the record, these questions remain unanswered. At last report, the buck was resting with the Justice department.