MPCC

The Military Police Complaints Commission has released its final report on the inquiry brought after Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association “alleged a failure on the part of certain Military Police (MP) to investigate the Canadian Task Force Commanders in Afghanistan for directing the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities in the face of a known risk of torture.”

A government appeal to limit the scope of an investigation by the Military Police Complaints Commission has been rejected.

The Harper government is once more seeking to limit the purview of the Military Police Complaints Commission.

Murray Brewster covers the last day of hearings at the Military Police Complaints Commission.

Detainee transfers were halted in May 2009 after an Afghan intelligence officer bragged of torture. Two allegations of mistreatment from later that year have now come to light.

As the Military Police Complaints Commission hearings continue, perhaps as many questions are raised as are answered.
Former diplomat Nicholas Gosselin visited Afghan detention facilities at least 38 times, but conducted only a handful of interviews with prisoners in the months after a bombshell allegation that a Canadian-captured detainee had been beaten with electrical cables. The revelation stunned both the inquiry chair and the human-rights group that prompted the continuing torture inquiry.

Gosselin told a Military Police Complaints Commission inquiry Tuesday that there often wasn’t time to get in to a question-and-answer session with inmates of either the Afghan intelligence jail, or the notorious Sarpoza prison.

All parties are scheduled to return to the table to resume negotiations on Afghan detainee documents at 3:30pm this afternoon.

While most everyone was paying attention to other matters across the hall, our former ambassador in Kabul appeared in Centre Block’s other grand committee room yesterday afternoon and neatly summed up Canada’s position on torture in Afghanistan.

Rahim Jaffer enters an already unimpressive picture

The Globe’s Steve Chase nicely captures an absurdist moment at the MPCC hearings yesterday.

Peter MacKay owes Helena Guergis a note of thanks

Richard Colvin is in Ottawa today to testify at hearings of the Military Police Complaints Commission. The morning was mostly a repeat, with some added detail and commentary, of his testimony at the special committee last year. Early reviews are in from the Globe, Canadian Press, CBC, Canwest, Star and Sun.