NR – 10.038 - May 7, 2010
OTTAWA – Thank you all for being here today. Before I begin I would like to introduce the members of my Board, Colonel Bruce Ploughman from 12 Wing Shearwater and Colonel Michael Pearson, Commander of 3 Area Support Group in Gagetown. Both of these officers are superb and highly respected leaders, and both brought great energy, intellect and experience to the Board, for which I am very grateful. Thank you.
On December 9, 2009 Gen Natynczyk the Chief of Defence Staff publicly raised concerns over inconsistencies in statements that had been made related to a detainee incident that occurred on 14 June 2006 in southern Afghanistan. At that time he directed that a BOI be conducted with a mandate to clarify the events around the mistreatment of an Afghan male who had been in CF custody, who had then been handed over to Afghan authorities, and then taken back by CF personnel.
The CDS, as does the entire leadership of the Canadian Forces, places great emphasis on the transparent, honest and expeditious reporting of actions involving your soldiers, sailors and airmen and women, especially when those actions pertain to the treatment of detainees.
The BOI was formally convened by VAdm Rouleau, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff on 20 January 2010, with a deadline for the Board's findings to be submitted 1 March. The Board, supported by a team of six dedicated subject matter experts and a very hardworking administrative staff, began our work in Halifax the following day. We quickly mapped out a plan of investigation, built a witness list, began collecting documentary evidence, and commenced taking sworn evidence 27 January. Most interviews occurred in Halifax, however we did spend a week in Ottawa seeing witnesses here. We also took some testimony via secure video conference from witnesses who were deployed with Op Podium in operations supporting the Vancouver Olympics.
In total, the Board interviewed 30 witnesses, reviewed about 500 documents and delivered a comprehensive report to the Vice Chief on March 3rd – five weeks after we were officially convened. We are pleased to be here in front of you all today to summarize our findings and to answer any questions you may have.
The Board was tasked to describe the specific details of the 14 June incident, to identify the reports that were submitted pertaining to the 14 June incident, to identify the process for reporting detainees in Afghanistan in 2006, and to determine to what a soldier was referring when he wrote that the Afghan male had been assaulted by Afghan police “as it happened in the past”.
I think it is important to emphasize at the outset that these events took place nearly four years ago. As you would expect, the CF organizations and processes that are in place now at the tactical level in Afghanistan and at the operational level here in Ottawa are much improved over those that were in effect when the mission began. These improvements reflect a constant drive by successive leaders at all levels of the chain of command to identify best practices in the field, and to apply lessons learned, always with a view to protecting our soldiers, and to training and when necessary fighting alongside Afghan security forces, in accordance with the Laws of Armed Conflict.
To understand the decisions and actions taken 14 June 2006, it is important to lay out some key context. The CF mission in Afghanistan had just transitioned from Kabul to the much more volatile Kandahar region in late 2005. As you know, the combat operations tempo and associated stresses that quickly came to characterize operations there were extraordinarily high and unprecedented in modern Canadian military experience. As well, CEFCOM, the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command was concurrently being stood up and was striving to establish its operational headquarters capability. In addition to this, a detainee policy, or Theatre Standing Order on Detainee Handling had been promulgated as the first battle group was arriving in Kandahar, but had not been operationalized through actual combat operations.
The Theatre Standing Order or TSO reflected the intent of the December 2005 Arrangement on the Transfer of Detainees, which was that suspect Taliban fighters detained by Canadian soldiers were to be transferred to Afghan National Security Forces or ANSF operating alongside our forces in the field. In early 2006, the ANSF footprint in Kandahar was small, and so when our soldiers on combat patrol detained suspect Taliban fighters, there was initially no ANSF force to transfer them to. This meant that detainees had to be transferred back to Kandahar Airfield (KAF). Whenever this happened they were reported as Canadian detainees in accordance with the TSO, up the chain of command, and ultimately to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
As the frequency and intensity of combat operations increased in April and May 2006, so coincidentally did ANSF capacity increase such that field transfers from Canadians to ANSF became the norm. However, for the soldiers on the ground, it was not clear whether the confirmed or suspected Taliban fighters they were taking on the battlefield and rapidly transferring to ANSF forces were in fact Canadian detainees before the transfers. In accordance with the TSO, a detainee was defined as anyone not consensually under the care, control or custody of the CF. In other words, someone who was not by their personal consent under our soldiers' control. However, many of our soldiers reasonably assessed that they were simply facilitating the detention of an Afghan insurgent by a legitimate Afghan authority, and therefore did not believe there was a requirement to report such events as Canadian detainee incidents.
With that context in mind, I would now like to turn to the specific details of the 14 June 2006 incident, which occurred in the Zhari-Panjwaii district of Kandahar province.
On 14 June the CF was involved in an ANSF-led operation involving two Canadian companies as well as units from the Afghan national Army (ANA) and the Afghan national Police (ANP). It was a routine operation similar to many that had occurred previously, characterized by minor firefights, screening of personnel at vehicle check-points, and leadership engagements in Afghan villages.
The incident began when a Section Commander proceeding in a mounted patrol stopped an Afghan civilian vehicle due to suspicious activity. There were no ANSF forces located with the Canadian patrol at the time. The Section Commander followed standard operating procedures and screened the men in the vehicle. One of the men was singled out for more detailed screening based on threat indicators. He was searched, questioned, flex-cuffed, and photographed.
At this point, in accordance with the strict definition contained in the TSO, the individual was a CF detainee. However, it was the Section Commander's reasonable assessment that the individual was not yet a detainee, that he was instead a person who was being controlled, such that further screening could take place to determine whether he should be detained. It was the Section Commander's intent that the individual be transported to the trusted Zhari District ANP office, where the ANP could assist with the assessment of the individual's status and with the determination of whether he should be detained by Afghan forces or not.
Due to tactical and operational security reasons, the decision was taken not to place the individual into a CF vehicle for the transfer. Another option emerged when a truck from a less-trusted ANP unit came into view, and the decision was made to request that they transport the individual to the Zhari District ANP office. They agreed, however, as soon as the truck departed, Canadian soldiers observed the ANP striking the individual in the back of the truck.
After the ANP truck arrived at the ANP office, Canadian soldiers investigated the status of the suspect individual, determined that he had been assaulted, and then took positive control of him. He was assessed by the company medic as having received minor injuries, and was given medical care, water and food. This was a decision not covered in the TSO as there was no provision for the transfer of an Afghan from ANSF to CF custody, but for humanitarian reasons it was the right thing to do and reflected good judgement by the Canadian soldiers involved.
The individual was subsequently transferred to the Zhari District ANP. Since it was the assessment by our troops that he had never been a Canadian detainee, he was not reported as such.
The reporting of this incident was the subject of a memorandum drafted at the Battle-Group Tactical Operations Centre 14 June at Kandahar Airfield. Unfortunately, the duty officer drafting the memo confused the incident with the reporting of another detainee event that had occurred earlier the same day, during which the ANSF had screened and released three Afghan individuals. This confusion led to the event under investigation being interpreted as one during which the suspect Afghan individual was never in Canadian custody, and was never a Canadian detainee. Clearly that was not the case, in strict accordance with the TSO, yet the memorandum was sent up the chain of command to Task Force Afghanistan HQ and CEFCOM HQ, where this interpretation was accepted as fact. It was this erroneous interpretation of the 14 June incident that informed briefings up the chain of command and ultimately to the CDS, and which finally led to the convening of this Board of Inquiry.
The Section Commander was asked by the Board specifically to what he was referring when he described prior abuse of Afghans by ANSF. We determined that he had nothing but rumours by way of evidence to conclude that there was ANP prisoner abuse.
The section commander testified that he had done some background readings about the history of Afghanistan as part of his personal preparations for the mission and had also read situation reports that made reference to the casual violence with which the ANP went about their duties.
He also heard rumours of the brutality of the ANP and witnessed the ANP using certain forms of corporal punishment. However, the section commander testified that he never observed ANP in the act of abusing detainees.
It is important to note that the majority of witnesses stressed that they felt a professional obligation to help mentor the ANSF with whom they worked to help in the process of improving their capacity, and CF members always intervened when they witnessed incidents where professional standards required improvement. It is also important to note that the Board asked each witness if they had ever observed the ANSF abusing a detainee before 14 June 2006 and the answers were all No.
Finally, the Board reviewed the current version of the TSO as part of our investigation and determined that the 22 December 2009 version currently in effect has incorporated substantive differences and has been evolved into a much more tactically focussed order.
In addition, in combined operations involving the CF and ANSF, CF personnel are no longer permitted to transfer detainees taken by CF units directly to Afghan forces, and any abuse or threat of abuse witnessed by CF personnel now require intervention, mentoring and if required, CF seizure and detention of the ANSF detainee for their own protection.
What is clear to me and the members of the Board, is that the lessons learned by the chain of command in 2006 and in subsequent rotations have been vigorously applied to the point where we have an effective, comprehensive and unambiguous detainee management regime in place.
Most importantly, it is clear that throughout the chain of command, the overriding priority in 2006, and in 2010 is the proper and humane treatment of detainees en conformité avec ses obligations internationales.
Finally, before I take questions, I wish to say that the Board strongly believes, based on the evidence we received, that Canadians should be very proud of our men and women who have served and who are serving in Afghanistan, and should be confident that Canadian Forces members consistently conduct themselves with the highest level of integrity and professionalism.
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