OTTAWA - Canada's former overseas commander says his headquarters received compelling first-hand accounts of alleged abuse of Afghan prisoners.
But retired lieutenant-general Michel Gauthier says that doesn't mean they were all factual, nor did those reports mean the Afghan government had violated its transfer agreement with Ottawa.
Gauthier, who retired in the summer of 2009, says he read "each and every" report on prisoners, and that allegations of abuse always caught his attention.
"From my perspective we didn't know factually that Afghans were tortured," Gauthier testified Tuesday.
"Certainly in one specific circumstance there was compelling evidence that a detainee might have been tortured. That gave us great concern.
"There were other allegations that gave us some concern, which I would not say were absolutely compelling, but they gave us concern."
The Canadian government acknowledges only one genuine case of prisoner abuse by Afghan authorities. The discovery, made by a diplomat conducting a prison inspection on Nov. 5, 2007, caused the military to suspend detainee handovers for four months.
Gauthier, former head of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command, is the highest-ranking officer to testify so far before the Military Police Complaints Commission inquiry.
The public hearing is looking into what military cops knew -- or should have known -- about possible torture of prisoners by Afghan authorities.
There have been allegations that military police were stymied in their attempts to get information on the handling of prisoners.
In particular, the inquiry has heard the provost marshal, the military's top cop, was cut out of the reporting chain. It's an important point because the independent Canadian Forces National Investigative service has the responsibility to investigate possible crimes, which transfer-to-torture represents.
Gauthier said he never interfered in the way reports were circulated among the various levels of his headquarters.
"I certainly wouldn't have discouraged passage of information from one level in the chain of command to the other on technical lines," he said.
Gauthier says subordinates decided who got to see various reports.
He drew clear lines as to where he believed responsibility lay for the handling of prisoners, while they were in Canadian custody and afterward.
Each task force commander had a responsibility to "inform themselves" about the situation in Afghan jails and to be comfortable that captured fighters were not being handed over to ill-treatment, he said.
His view was buttressed by two directives he issued, which have already tabled at the inquiry. The documents were sent to task force commanders in June and September 2007.
After the prisoners were out of Canadian custody, Gauthier said, Foreign Affairs was responsible for making sure the Afghans treated prisoners humanely.
