Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, in an about-face from earlier comments, acknowledged Thursday that the International Committee of the Red Cross does not inform Canada of the treatment of detainees captured by Canadian troops and transferred to Afghan authorities.
In a terse statement released to The Globe and Mail Thursday evening, Mr. O'Connor said: "It was my understanding that the ICRC could share information concerning detainee treatment with Canada.
"I have recently learned that they would, in fact, provide this information to the detaining nation, in this case Afghanistan."
Those comments contradict several assurances Mr. O'Connor made in the House of Commons. In May, Mr. O'Connor told MPs that the Red Cross would report any detainee abuse to Canadian authorities.
A University of Ottawa law professor recently sent a letter to the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission alleging that at least one, perhaps three Afghan detainees "taken captive by the Canadian Forces appears to have been beaten while detained and interrogated by them."
Amir Attaran based the allegations on documents obtained under the Access to Information Act outlining injuries in the cases. The story, first reported in The Globe early February, caused a political storm in Ottawa. Canada's top soldier, General Rick Hillier, ordered a full-blown board of inquiry into detainee treatment in Afghanistan. The independent Military Police Complaints Commission also ordered a "public-interest investigation" into possible detainee abuse by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. And a criminal investigation by a special unit of the military police has also been ordered.
Meanwhile, The Globe learned earlier this month, the three detainees at the heart of the multiple probes disappeared while in Afghan custody, posing significant challenges for the criminal probe and raising new doubts about government assurances that all detainees are properly treated and accounted for.
Mr. O'Connor was first contradicted by Simon Schorno, a spokesman for the ICRC, who told The Globe and Mail that the Red Cross does not monitor the Canada-Afghanistan agreement on detainee transfer.
(Mr. Schorno contacted The Globe and Mail Thursday to make a minor clarification in information he had previously provided. "While the ICRC has no formal agreement with the Canadian government to visit persons detained by Canada in Afghanistan, it has, in fact, carried out ad hoc visits to individuals in the temporary custody of Canadian forces in Afghanistan before those individuals were either released or transferred to the custody of Afghan authorities," he said.) Thursday in Ottawa, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion listed the detainees as one of the subjects Prime Minister Stephen Harper is avoiding, charging that the Conservatives are smearing opponents to distract from such tricky questions.
"Now we learn that the Red Cross in not even aware that they need to take care of the detainees that we give to the Afghans," Mr. Dion said. "There are a lot of questions that he should answer instead to try to smear the reputation of opponents."
The Prime Minister's Office referred questions on the issue to Mr. O'Connor's office.
After multiple calls and e-mails, ministerial spokesperson Isabelle Bouchard issued the e-mail statement, but refused to answer questions on what Mr. O'Connor knew and when.
Mr. O'Connor said last week that many detainees are bribed out of Afghan prisons. "It's quite a revolving-door system," he said.
Canada makes no provision for follow-up monitoring to ensure its captives don't disappear —or worse — once they are transferred into Afghanistan's notorious prisons.
With a report from Campbell Clark and staff
