VILNIUS, Lithuania - Canada was assured by a senior member of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government on Friday that the handover of Taliban prisoners in Kandahar can resume without the fear of torture.
The pledge came from Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, who was attending a two-day informal meeting of NATO defence chiefs.
"All the necessary actions which were required have been taken by the Afghan government,'' he told reporters as the meeting broke up.
"So I think they can resume without being worried.''
The transfers were halted Nov. 6, one day after Canadian diplomats came across a clear case of abuse in the jails of the National Directorate for Security _ the NDS _ in Kandahar. A prisoner showed signs of being beaten with an electrical cable and a rubber hose.
The frenzied assurances came only a day after a Federal Court judge refused to grant human-rights groups a temporary injunction, suggesting the point was moot because the handovers were no longer taking place.
The Tory government didn't acknowledge until late January that it had suspended the handovers _ a three months delay it claimed it was a matter of operational security.
When it finally did become public and the resulting political powderkeg exploded, MacKay insisted that an agreement governing prisoner transfers, signed amid a flurry of earlier abuse allegations last spring, was still valid.
He said Canada would resume its obligation once it was satisfied no abuse would take place.
MacKay was asked prior to Wardak's comments whether conditions had improved enough for the suspension to be lifted, but wouldn't commit to making such a move.
"There'll be an operational decision taken on resuming transfers,'' he said just before boarding a plane for home.
The military is supposed to decide on a case-by-case basis whether prisoners can be transferred.
In recent days the NDS, an entity on to itself with its own jails and secret courts, sent a pair of senior officers from Kabul to oversee the Kandahar facility and keep an eye on prisoners.
A member of the jail staff is under detention, but Wardak did not identify the suspect or indicate what kind of action would be taken.
There has also been a housecleaning of prison officials, he added.
Asked whether he believed the actions would be enough to satisfy Canadian concerns, Wardak responded: "I hope so.''
MacKay made a point of pulling Wardak aside at the NATO meeting on Thursday to again express his concern about the treatment of prisoners. When the case first surfaced last fall, MacKay was in Afghanistan and demanded immediate meetings with not only Wardak, but Karzai and Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid, who is under suspicion of taking part in interrogations.
After a hasty telephone conversation with the head of NDS, Amrullah Saleh, in Kabul, Wardak said he was able to reassure MacKay on Thursday that the Afghans have the matter in hand.
"He was deeply concerned about this issue,'' the Afghan defence chief said.
"The prison is open every day for inspections by human-rights organizations and also Canadian authorities.''
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has also said it believes the handovers should resume.
Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association claim Canada could be liable under international law if it knowingly hands someone over to be tortured.
On Wednesday, a Federal Court judge tossed out a temporary injunction request, which demanded a halt to the transfers, saying the application was moot since no handovers were taking place. But Federal Court Justice Anne Mactavish, in a 36-page ruling, made it clear she's not happy with the way Canada has managed the safety of captives.
She said the matter could be reviewed again if transfers resumed, but lawyers for both human-rights groups argued there's nothing preventing the federal government from resuming the handover in secret.
