In a remarkable about-face, Canada's top soldier admitted Wednesday that a prisoner taken into custody by Canadian soldiers was later abused by Afghan authorities during the early months of this country's military mission in Kandahar.
The revelation by General Walter Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff, undermines the Harper government's attempts to contain a widening controversy over Canada's handling of suspected insurgents captured in 2006 and 2007.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay has previously insisted that “not a single Taliban prisoner turned over by Canadian Forces can be proven to have been abused.”
Gen. Natyncyzk's admission – contradicting testimony he gave less than 24 hours earlier – landed with force in Ottawa, uniting all opposition parties in calling for Mr. MacKay's resignation.
At the same time, the number of former ambassadors protesting against the Harper government's attacks on diplomat Richard Colvin doubled. By Wednesday night, 71 had signed an open letter castigating Ottawa for dismissing Mr. Colvin's warnings as irrelevant and suspect – a move they warn could cast a chill over the foreign service's ability to report frankly from postings abroad.
Facing a grilling by a parliamentary committee Wednesday, Mr. MacKay shifted the emphasis in defending the government's record, telling MPs that Ottawa did not “willfully” turn prisoners over to torture.
Separately, Mr. Colvin, whose allegations of torture by Afghan interrogators are at the heart of the detainee controversy, is preparing to address what he considers inaccurate comments made by public officials after his Nov. 18 testimony.
The day began in Ottawa with a hastily arranged news conference by Gen. Natynczyk. Looking embarrassed and frustrated, he summoned reporters to correct testimony he gave on Tuesday when he'd attempted to distance Canada from a June 14, 2006, incident in which as many as six Afghan police severely beat a prisoner.
He also released a copy of a report on the captive that contained equally galvanizing information: notes suggesting it was common knowledge in 2006 among Canadian soldiers that Afghan authorities abused captives. The Geneva Conventions make it a war crime to transfer prisoners to those who would abuse them.
If this is the information I'm finding out this morning at 9:00 on the 9th of December, what else is there before I make a conclusion like this? — General Walter Natynczyk
The report said Canadian soldiers photographed the prisoner in their custody before turning him over “to ensure that if the Afghan national police did assault him, as has happened in the past, we would have a visual record of his condition.”
A day earlier, Gen. Natynczyk had insisted that Canada had not taken any responsibility for the man before Afghans maltreated him and in fact rescued him from the abuse afterward. He had said the prisoner had not been taken into Canadian custody before this, which meant Ottawa had not incurred obligations under the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war.
On Wednesday, Gen. Natynczyk revealed that he'd been misinformed and that a new report came to light only at 9 a.m. that showed the captive had been in Canadian custody before being handed over to the Afghans.
“I regret that I only have this information at this point,” Gen. Natynczyk said. “I looked at my watch at 9:06 this morning when I received this report and I thought, ‘My goodness, why have I not had this information? Why didn't we have this information back in 2006 and 2007?' ”
