Defence watchdog clears military police in Afghan prison torture controversy

OTTAWA – A watchdog agency which looked into controversial allegations of prisoner torture in Afghan jails has cleared Canadian military police officers of any wrongdoing.

In a long-awaited report, the Military Police Complaints Commission concludes the officers had no grounds to open an investigation into the treatment of suspected Taliban prisoners after they were handed over to Afghan authorities in Kandahar.

But the agency notes that the military cops were kept in the dark by the Ottawa-based overseas command that ran the war.

The blunt report says there was a great deal of reliable information in both public and classified material that documented the risk of mistreatment once prisoners were handed over.

But warnings by diplomat Richard Colvin and Foreign Affairs Department reports that followed up on allegations of torture that surfaced in spring 2007 were kept from military police.

The commission was asked to decide whether military police knew or should have known about the alleged torture.