OTTAWA - The Harper government has released another 800 pages of documents related to Afghan detainees.
The latest document dump came a day before a Canadian general and a top Foreign Affairs official are to appear at a military police inquiry in Ottawa.
Brig.-Gen. Richard Blanchette and Jillian Stirk, assistant deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, have been summoned to the Military Police Complaints Commission to explain why it's taking the government so long to release detainee documents.
Stirk is standing in for foreign affairs deputy minister Len Edwards, who is out of the country.
There didn't appear to be any new revelations in the stack of documents the Conservative government released Monday afternoon.
It's the third time the government has dumped mounds of detainee paperwork after previously releasing 2,500 censored pages last month and 6,200 pages earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the Military Police Complaints Commission is caught in a bureaucratic paper jam that threatens to stall the inquiry.
The commission is expected to decide whether it can go ahead without some key documents, or if it needs to postpone hearings until it has all the paperwork.
A government lawyer has told the commission it will likely take weeks -- or even months -- before some of the documents are released.
Buried somewhere in the reams of paperwork still under review are a series of reports by former foreign-service worker that documented allegations of abuse in Afghan jails.
The reports by Nicholas Gosselin cover at least eight claims of mistreatment by Afghan authorities between January and August 2008.
Word of their existence emerged when Gosselin testified at the hearings earlier this month.
The Military Police Complaints Commission is investigating an allegation from Amnesty International Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
The groups say Canadian military police did not properly investigate officers responsible for directing the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities, allegedly at the risk of torture.
Transferring prisoners between countries knowing they likely face torture is considered a war crime.
