Omar Khadr labelled 'good kid' by U.S. captors

Prison stay could radicalize him, officials told

OTTAWA — The U.S. soldiers holding Omar Khadr believe the detained Canadian is a "good kid" who is not only "salvageable" but actually runs the risk of becoming a radical if he stays in Guantanamo Bay, according to Foreign Affairs reports.

The documents - likely the most significant ever made public in the case - will almost certainly put pressure on Ottawa to finally attempt to bring Mr. Khadr home.

Two reports written by Department of Foreign Affairs officials who visited Mr. Khadr in Guantanamo Bay in March and April of this year describe a "likeable, funny and intelligent young man." Those aren't just the sentiments of the Canadian officials, but also the U.S. soldiers charged with guarding Mr. Khadr, and whose fellow soldier the Canadian is alleged to have killed.

"Omar is 'salvageable,' 'non-radicalized' and 'a good kid' who is well-liked both within the Camp and by [Joint Task Force] staff," a Foreign Affairs official notes in March. "JTF staff seems to look out for him by stopping by to chat on occasion, convincing him to meet with his lawyers and encouraging him to 'keep his nose clean.' "

But perhaps the most significant observation comes a report dated a month later.

"... our U.S. military contact repeated what he had said during the welfare visit conducted in March," a Foreign Affairs official writes. "He said that extended detention in Guantanamo would however run the risk of turning [Mr. Khadr] into a radical."

The reports have not yet been made public, but were obtained by The Globe and Mail. At least one of the reports is expected to be presented to members of a House of Commons subcommittee studying the Khadr case in Ottawa as early as today.

Virtually every prevailing opinion about Mr. Khadr over the years is contradicted by the reports. Canadian officials describe a hopeful young man who is nonetheless aware of how serious his situation is.

"The overarching theme of much of our discussions focused on his desire to get out of Guantanamo, to return to Canada, to fix his health, to educate himself, to have a family and to eventually find a job satisfying his personal commitment to help those in need," a Foreign Affairs official writes. "By contrast, he also expressed a hyper-awareness of the challenges that he would face, but demonstrated no bitterness or anger, emphasizing instead a desire to move forward in life."

In another report, an official says Mr. Khadr tells him he is in Guantanamo Bay because of his family, and wants another chance.

"He wonders however why Canada is so quiet on his case and commented that, while Canada was the best country in the world to live in, it was not as strong as the UK to defend its citizens abroad, although both countries have the same Queen.

"He hopes that Canada will intervene to get him out of Guantanamo [he said he hoped PM Harper will do something]."

Mr. Khadr's relationship with his much-loathed family - widely believed to be one of the reasons the government has refused to try to bring him home - is also described in one of the reports. An official notes that Mr. Khadr barely talks about his family and doesn't seem overly keen to call them.

"The [U.S. official] told me later that one of his last phone calls had initially been cancelled by his mother, because she couldn't make herself available."

Officials also list Mr. Khadr's myriad health problems: He has no vision in his left eye and his right eye is deteriorating because of shrapnel embedded in the eye's membrane. He still has shrapnel in his right shoulder, and it causes the metal detectors at the prison camp to go off.

Mr. Khadr says he doesn't like the 14-day rotation of meals, which he describes as heavy and covered in "red sauce." However, he makes sure to keep within a specific weight range so he isn't force-fed.

Some of the items Mr. Khadr requests from the Canadian officials are surprising. He asks for, among other things, a book on French for beginners, a first-aid book and a stress ball.

The U.S. military's responsiveness to those requests is mixed: Mr. Khadr is allowed an origami book brought for him by a Canadian official, but not the paper accompanying the book.

When a Canadian representative asks why Mr. Khadr did not get a pillow brought for him, a U.S. official notes that "pillows were only handed out as incentives for detainees being interrogated and that since Mr. Khadr had lawyers and was no longer subject to interrogation, he was not eligible for one."

Mr. Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, is due back in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom later this month. He faces multiple charges - including the murder of a U.S. soldier during an Afghan firefight - before a military commission. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Pentagon Records Detail Prisoner Abuse

WASHINGTON - Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents released April 16 show.

Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, according to the documents.

A 2006 Army review concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."

The documents, which were turned over April 16 to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.

The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.

The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees - a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.

"You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing that?" a military criminal investigator asked one of the interrogators, according to a November 2004 transcript among the more than 300 pages of documents.

"No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one," the interrogator answered, according to the transcript. "I used tactics that were used in SERE."

The investigator continued: "Did you see (redacted) hit detainees during the interviews?"

"Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches," the interrogator answered.

In another interview that day, according to the documents, the Army investigator asks whether "you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water and snow mix on persons captured?"

"They do spray cold water on prisoners," the interrogator answered, referring to SERE lessons. That interrogator was unaware, however, of men in his unit pouring cold water over the detainees, as the Afghans later complained.

ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said such interrogation techniques are taught at SERE schools only to show Soldiers how to withstand them from enemy captors. She called the methods, when used together, a form of torture.

"They were intended to be defensive methods, not offensive methods," Singh said. "This raises serious questions about the interrogation methods that were being applied in Afghanistan."

SERE methods were also used on detainees by military interrogators in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Singh said.

The Pentagon and the Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment April 16.

The 2004 criminal inquiry of Nasser's death was among a string of probes into alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. jails in Afghanistan.

Trying to deflect the kind of scandal that followed the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan ordered a review of their secretive network of about 20 jails at bases across Afghanistan.

Nasser was among eight detainees who were held at Gardez for between 18 and 20 days. The Army concluded he died of a stomach ailment.

Amid grimness and beatings, a sense of change

The sprawling prison complex at Guantánamo Bay looks from a distance like many of the hastily built resorts round the Caribbean, the camps occupying a narrow strip of sand by the palm-lined sea-shore, with fencing to keep the locals out.

But through the military checkpoint, the grimness of the world's most infamous prison becomes apparent: barbed wire and watchtowers and heavy nylon matting hiding it from outside eyes.

Once inside it becomes grimmer still. Prisoners at Camp Six, where there are maximum security cells, are isolated for 22 hours a day, allowed into a small courtyard for two hours to exercise. Confrontations with guards and beatings are commonplace. Many have been tortured, if not at the camp, then before they arrived. About 10 are on hunger strike. Two have been force-fed for more than 800 days.

At Camp Six military guards, working in strict rotation, peer through peepholes at least once a minute. A prisoner, briefly glimpsed, is bedraggled, only a tiny glimmer of curiosity in his eyes at a break in the routine brought about by the presence of a handful of journalists.

A senior US medical officer at the camps, who preferred not to be named, admitted that about 10% to 15% of the prisoners were receiving treatment for medical or psychological problems, but insisted this was comparable to prisons on the US mainland.

Reporters are not allowed to speak to prisoners but lawyers can, and they regard conditions at Guantánamo as much worse than anywhere else in the US prison system. One of the lawyers, Wells Dixon, from the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said he had been going to the camps for years and had seen a marked deterioration in prisoners' health. "Camp Six was set up to destroy them physically and mentally, and it worked," he said.

Almost seven years since the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan and five years since the occupation of Iraq, there are still 275 detainees at Guantánamo (down from a high of 775), held without trial. They have come from a wide arc stretching from North Africa through the Middle East to the Muslim regions of western China.

Rear Admiral Mark Buzby, commander in charge of the Guantánamo camps, inside the US naval base on the eastern end of Cuba, said in an interview that his conscience was clear. "I have to get up every morning and look in the mirror and believe that I am doing something that is morally and legally correct. And believe me I can do that every single morning."

Buzby claimed that many of the inmates, if not detained, "would be very actively engaged in jihad and would be doing their very best to take American and coalition lives. And the reason I know this is because they are very happy to tell us that every single day."

Lawyers questioned whether it was possible to hold a fair trial, given that some of the evidence that might be used against the prisoners had been obtained by torture. Buzby said it would be for the judge to decide whether the evidence was admissible. In contrast with the torture used in secret CIA detention centres round the world, Buzby said his preference was for interrogators building a rapport with detainees and offering incentives. "We use the Subway sandwich and the Big Mac." Asked whether he regarded waterboarding - which simulates drowning and was used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-declared mastermind of 9/11 - as torture, he admitted: "I would certainly not want it done to me."

The prisoners react in various ways to indefinite confinement. Some are compliant, and these are mainly held in Camp Four, where they are free to wander round a small compound and chat to other inmates, can attend classes in English and have access to a library, in which one of the most read books, according to the librarian, is the latest Harry Potter in English.

Confrontation common
But confrontation is never far away. One of the guards at Camp Six, Patrick Zintel, told of how the prisoners retaliate. "They pile faeces by the door and when a guard comes in, they will throw it at them," he said. Such incidents are common enough for the US to put an eye-wash dispenser outside the cells.

Another guard, Chris Cookson, said that such incidents also occurred in the camps where the inmates are supposedly compliant. "I came out of an office and a cocktail of water, urine and faeces came out of nowhere and splattered the person in front," he said.

The guards retaliate heavily. Clive Stafford Smith, the London-based lawyer for some of the inmates and author of Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side, which recounts the experiences of the prisoners, said he had seen the scars from such beatings. "Sadly, the emergency reaction force [a five-strong team of guards] still responds to minor infringements by beating them up."

There is a sense of uncertainty about Guantánamo. Although the Bush administration promised that the first of the trials at Guantánamo will finally begin this year, guards and lawyers are unsure how much longer the camps will exist. All the leading candidates in the US presidential race -the two Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Republican John McCain - have promised to close Guantánamo on entering the White House on January 20 next year.

Stafford Smith predicted that Guantánamo will close rapidly and welcomed the prospect because the prisoners are likely to be moved to the US mainland where they will be subject to US law.

Defence lawyers divide the detainees into three categories. The first are those like Mohammed who could go on trial. Buzby said he expected about 80 to go on trial. Of the remainder, 80 have already been cleared for release but cannot find a country that will take them. The others are awaiting clearance.

Uncertainty
The defence department said earlier this month that Mohammed, who is held at Camp Seven, a CIA camp whose existence was only revealed this year, and five others are to be tried on charges that carry the death penalty.

Yet another camp has been built for Mohammed's trial. Camp Justice, begun in September and completed at the start of this month, consists of a windowless courthouse, holding cells and tents for 550 officials, lawyers and journalists.

Shayana Kadidal, another lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which has more clients at Guantánamo than anyone else, said he thought the trial would be nowhere near completion by the time Bush leaves office. Reflecting the sense that these are the dying days of Guantánamo, the air force engineers who built Camp Justice said it could be dismantled in a month.

Gitmo captive: I was threatened with rape

WASHINGTON -- In a fresh document from the Guantánamo war court files, Canadian captive Omar Khadr alleges that he was repeatedly threatened with rape as an interrogation technique in Afghanistan and at U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

The partially censored nine-page affidavit, signed by Khadr on Feb. 22, covers old ground already investigated, including allegations of abuse at Guantánamo that emerged in 2005, prompting a Navy criminal investigation.

But the document includes never-before revealed allegations, such as the rape threats and a partially censored description of regaining consciousness after his capture to discover he was being interrogated in an American field hospital in Afghanistan. He was 15.

Once released from medical care to the Bagram detention center, he said, ``I was interrogated many, many times. For about the first two weeks to a month that I was there I would be brought into the interrogation room on a stretcher.''

A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, repeated the Pentagon's long-held conviction that Guantánamo captives are treated humanely and that any credible allegations of mistreatment are investigated and dealt with in keeping with military standards.

"In this case, we have no evidence to substantiate these claims," he wrote in an e-mail. He also noted that all approved interrogation techniques are published in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations and that an al Qaeda training manual "teaches its operatives to make false claims of abuse."

The details are emerging in the military trial case of Khadr, now 21, accused of the grenade killing of a U.S. Army commando in a July 2002 firefight. The document was admitted to court last week as part of the pretrial arguments over access to potential witnesses for Khadr's upcoming summertime trial before U.S. military officers, called a military commission.

Meantime, the Canadian's Pentagon lawyers have been searching for interrogators and other witnesses to his capture, in which he was shot twice in the back in a U.S. raid on a suspected al Qaeda compound. They also want witnesses to the interrogations in Afghanistan and later in Guantánamo.

The lawyers are seeking to punch holes in the prosecution case alleging that Khadr, as an al Qaeda conspirator since age 10, was the only enemy combatant who could have thrown the grenade that fatally wounded Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., in a firefight near Khost, Afghanistan.

Speer died of his wounds days later at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Last week, the defense revealed at a pretrial hearing that the brigade commander at the firefight wrote two accounts, with the same date.

In the first account, a brigade commander identified to the public as ''Lt. Col. W'' wrote that the grenade thrower was killed on the spot. In the second, according to Navy Cmdr. William Kuebler, written two months later, Lt. Col. W said only that the enemy was ''engaged,'' leaving open the possibility that he had survived.

Khadr was the only survivor.

The documents are under seal at the Office of Military Commission along with the other defense motions from last week's case.

Now, the affidavit, a 63-item statement by the Canadian who grew up between Toronto, South Asia and U.S. detention, offers Khadr's most comprehensive account of his alleged treatment -- an English document crafted with his lawyers, which does not name his guards and interrogators, at least in the portion not blacked out by military censors.

For example, after his capture and regaining consciousness, he said, he was guarded by ``a young blond soldier who was about 25 and a Mexican or Puerto Rican soldier.''

The document is riddled with threats of rape wielded by the United States and its allies.

''On several occasions at Bagram, interrogators threatened to have me raped or sent to other countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan or Israel to be raped,'' he alleges in Item 23. By Item 55, he has been transferred to Guantánamo, and he is taken to interrogation with an Afghan man, who ''told me that I would be sent to Afghanistan and raped.'' In Item 56, he says, an interrogator pulled his hair, spit in his face and threatened to bring in an Egyptian ``to rape me.''

The document also revisits old allegations -- such as his description on arriving in Guantánamo, at age 16, and hearing someone in the military say, ``Welcome to Israel.''

Or his claim, investigated by the military, that in March 2003 guards splashed his prison camp uniform with Pine Sol and dragged him around an interrogation booth, like a human mop, because he had urinated on himself during a bout of shackled isolation.

Pentagon and Guantánamo spokesmen did not reply Tuesday to queries on what that investigation found or whether anyone was disciplined.

The current prison camps spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt, in February declined to address allegations emerging at the military commissions, saying, ``It is likely best for all of us to hear what the attorneys have to say during the hearings.''

Ex-Sailor Convicted in Terror Case

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - A former Navy sailor was convicted Wednesday of leaking details about ship movements to suspected terrorism supporters, an act that could have endangered his own crewmates.

Jurors convicted Hassan Abu-Jihaad, 32, of Phoenix of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing classified national defense information on the second day of deliberations.

The American-born Muslim convert formerly known as Paul R. Hall faces up to 25 years in federal prison when he is sentenced May 23. His attorneys said they were disappointed, and that an appeal was likely.

The leak came amid increased wariness on the part of U.S. Navy commanders whose ships headed to the Persian Gulf in the months after a terrorist ambush in 2000 killed 17 sailors aboard the USS Cole.

Abu-Jihaad, who was a signalman aboard the USS Benfold, was accused of passing along details that included the makeup of his Navy battle group, its planned movements and a drawing of the group's formation when it was to pass through the dangerous Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf on April 29, 2001.

Abu-Jihaad's attorney said a four-year investigation that spanned two continents failed to turn up proof that Abu-Jihaad leaked details of ship movements and their vulnerability to attack.

Federal prosecutors said he sympathized with the enemy and admitted disclosing military intelligence. But they acknowledged they did not have direct proof that he leaked the ship details.

Authorities said the details of ship movements had to have been leaked by an insider, saying they were not publicly known and contained military jargon. The leaked documents closely matched what Abu-Jihaad would have had access to as a signalman, authorities said.

Dan LaBelle, Abu-Jihaad's attorney, tried to show that many details of ship movements he was accused of leaking to suspected terrorism supporters were publicly available through news reports, press releases and Web sites. He also noted that Navy officials testified that the details were full of errors.

Prosecutors say investigators discovered files on a computer disk recovered from a suspected terrorism supporter's home in London that included the ship movements, as well as the number and type of personnel on each ship and the ships' capabilities. The file ended with instructions to destroy the message, according to testimony.

Abu-Jihaad was charged in the same case that led to the 2004 arrest of Babar Ahmad, a British computer specialist accused of running Web sites to raise money, appeal for fighters and provide equipment such as gas masks and night vision goggles for terrorists. Ahmad, who lived with his parents where the computer file was allegedly found, is to be extradited to the U.S.

Abu-Jihaad, who was honorably discharged in 2002, was prosecuted in New Haven because the investigation first focused on a Connecticut-based Internet service provider.

Davis: DoD General Counsel ‘Leaned On’ Me To Rush Detainee’s Trial Ahead Of Australian Elections

In March 2007, Australian native David Hicks, who was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, became the first person to be sentenced by a military commission convened under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. At the time, critics charged that Hicks’ sudden plea bargain appeared to be the result of a political deal between Vice President Cheney and then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

A month before Hicks’ sentence was announced, Cheney visited Howard in Australia, where the Australian PM lobbied for the trial to “be brought on as soon as humanly possible and with no further delay.” At the time, Howard was in a tough re-election fight and Hicks’ fate was an issue in the campaign.

Yesterday, Col. Morris Davis — who was the lead prosecutor in Hicks’ trial — told Australia’s Herald Sun that he was “leaned on” by the Pentagon in a manner that “only made sense in political context“:

On the end of the line was the Pentagon’s general counsel, William “Jim” Haynes. He asked Colonel Davis how soon he could charge Hicks. The Australian had been held in custody without a hearing for five years after being picked up in Afghanistan in late 2001. […]

The only way Colonel Davis could make sense of what he was hearing from Mr Haynes was in the context of what he was reading about the political environment in Australia. […]

Colonel Davis says the phone calls he got from Mr Haynes and the timeline in Australia in which a “loyal ally” in Mr Howard was eyeing a difficult election and wanted to get the Hicks matter put to rest, means the nine-month sentence deal that got Hicks home has a “bad odour”..”

Davis, who has previously said that he “felt pressure to pursue high-profile convictions ahead of the 2008 elections, resigned from his position in October 2007 after he was placed under Haynes in the chain of command. Last week, Davis told the Nation that Haynes had insisted to him in 2005 that the Pentagon “can’t have acquittals” at Guantanamo because they’d “been holding these guys for so long” and it would be difficult to “explain letting them get off.”

Haynes announced yesterday that he is resigning in order to return “to private life next month.”

Pentagon to challenge interview of 9/11 suspect

Pentagon prosecutors are challenging a military court's decision to let Osama bin Laden's driver send written questions to alleged senior al Qaeda members held incommunicado at Guantánamo.

Defense lawyers for Salim Hamdan, 36, want to ask reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, known in CIA circles as ''KSM,'' and six other ''high-value detainees'' what they know about Hamdan's role in al Qaeda's organization.

Based on their answers, they will decide whether to call as defense witnesses any of the seven men, who are fellow detainees now but were held and interrogated for years by the CIA.

Last week, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, Hamdan's military commission judge, ruled that defense lawyers could submit questions to an independent security officer to give to Mohammed and the others held in a restricted prison camp on the base called Camp 7.

The judge ordered that the questions and answers be strictly limited to the time before Hamdan's capture in November 2001 in Afghanistan. Censors will black out any responses that don't cover that time period.

Navy Lt. Catheryne Pully, a military commissions spokeswoman, said on Monday that the prosecution would seek ''reconsideration'' of the judge's decision, which the prosecutors believed raised ``a lot of complicated issues.''

Intelligence officials have described as national security secrets the CIA sites where Mohammed and 14 other detainees were held before their September 2006 transfer to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Now they are held in Camp 7, segregated from other detainees at an undisclosed site on the remote U.S. Navy base. The prison camps' spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt, has not been able to say whether the location of the camp itself is a national security secret.

Allred gave the prosecution until Tuesday to find an independent security officer -- who does not work for the prosecution -- to handle the defense lawyers' questions and detainees' answers, if they choose to reply.

Hamdan attorney Andrea Prasow, a civilian on the Defense Department team, said the Pentagon prosecutors agreed to identify the security officer but notified the team on Saturday that they would ask for reconsideration of the question.

Hamdan's lawyers wanted to meet the men in person to assess their credibility as potential witnesses at Hamdan's summertime trial.

The lead defense lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brad Mizer, said the attorneys also sought face-to-face meetings with the detainees because, after years in CIA custody, the captives might suspect written questions as an interrogation trick.

Allred's remedy to the defense lawyers mirrors a 2003 formula proposed by a federal judge at the civilian trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who eventually pleaded guilty to providing material support for al Qaeda and is now serving a life sentence.

In that case, the Justice Department refused to let the defense send questions to Mohammed, the reputed 9/11 mastermind. At the time, he was under CIA interrogation, and the government argued his testimony would harm the war effort.

In this instance, the men Hamdan's lawyers seek to question are now among 15 former CIA detainees in military custody at Guantánamo.

• Mohammed, who according to Pentagon transcripts confessed to plotting the 9/11 attacks along with a long string of other al Qaeda suicide bombings, as well as beheading Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.

• Ramzi bin al Shib, a Yemeni and Mohammed's alleged go-between with some of the 9/11 attackers.

• Walid bin Attash, another Yemeni who supposedly trained some of the hijackers.

• Mustafa al Hawsawi, who supposedly helped get funds to the Sept. 11 suicide squads.

Those four men were identified as candidates for execution at Guantánamo as part of a complex, six-detainee prosecution the Pentagon unveiled last week. Their charge sheets await approval from a Bush administration appointee. None of them yet have lawyers.

In addition, Hamdan's lawyers asked to interview Abu Faraj al Libi, Abdul Rahim al Nashiri and Abdul Hadi al Iraqi because of their knowledge of other al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan not tied to the Sept. 11 strikes.

Military probe into alleged Canadian abuse hits brick wall

Investigation into mistreatment of detainees in our custody deliberately stalled, critics say

After more than a year, the criminal probe into whether Canadian soldiers beat and abused Afghan detainees while military police turned a blind eye remains incomplete and critics say it is being deliberately dragged out.

No charges have been laid, there's no hint when the investigation might end and one person is dead: An Afghan intermediary sent by investigators to try to make contact with the alleged victims was killed by the Taliban.

The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, the special military police unit conducting the investigation, rejects accusations that it is running out the clock. "It's absolutely a top priority," said Captain Cindy Tessier, referring to Operation Camel Spider, as the probe has been dubbed. Capt. Tessier said five investigators have been working on the case full-time for a year; more than 70 people have been questioned in three countries and huge piles of documents have been sifted and read.

But she could offer no estimate as to when the investigation might wrap up.

Amir Attaran, the University of Ottawa law professor who uncovered the suspicious and unexplained pattern of injuries among detainees, is not convinced the military is serious in its belated and long-running efforts to investigate.

"When the military is investigating the military, which is inconvenient for the military, is it any wonder that the military rags the puck?" he said.

Meanwhile, the military medical records for detainees from the spring of 2006 - when the detainees were allegedly abused and beaten and then treated by Canadian doctors at the main base on Kandahar Air Field - have mysteriously gone missing. "No one at KAF has an explanation for the missing Roto 1 files other than to speculate that it was poor organization," says one report by a CFNIS investigator marked "secret," which was released heavily censored.

The CFNIS is a special unit, independent of usual military police reporting, that was created in 1997 with a mandate to investigate serious and sensitive matters related to Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces. Its independence permits it "to conduct thorough investigations without fear of influence" from the military chain of command, according to the CFNIS.

Few details of its probe have emerged. Another CFNIS report, from June of 2007, admits that efforts to track down, win the confidence of, and then interview the three detainees allegedly abused while in Canadian custody have failed. "It would be highly unlikely that investigators will be able to interview the detainees" after the grim news that an interlocutor sent by investigators "had been targeted by the Taliban and assassinated."

Sources familiar with the general thrust of the investigation, who discussed its progress on condition that they not be identified, suggest that its focus has shifted from whether one or more detainees was beaten by soldiers or military police to why no military police investigation was launched at the time.

In fact, military police failed to investigate the beatings between April of 2006, when they occurred, and 10 months later when The Globe and Mail reported that Prof. Attaran had furnished the documents to the Military Police Complaints Commission. Once the story broke, multiple investigations were launched.

In its official account of the beating, the military admitted the detainees had been hit but concluded that military police had "used appropriate physical control techniques" to restrain the prisoners, even though their hands were already bound behind their backs.

But the government flatly insisted there was no cause for public concern as its policies regarding detainees guaranteed they were safe both in Canadian custody and after transfer to Afghan prisons. Since then, reports have shown that Afghan detainees have been tortured in Afghan custody, and the government twice changed its policy on handing over prisoners before stopping handovers altogether.

In additional to the CFNIS criminal probe, Canada's top soldier, Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier, ordered a board of inquiry to investigate all of the policies, procedures and training regarding the capture, treatment and transfer of enemy prisoners that he once disparaged as "detestable murderers and scumbags."

"We'll peel back the layers of the onion and we'll determine what, if anything, occurred, did that meet our policies and processes for handling detainees, do we have to improve anything," Gen. Hillier said. That board is still peeling and hasn't reported. In his last public comment, in December, Lieutenant-Commander Philip Anido said it was awaiting witnesses still not released by the CFNIS and that any report was months from completion. No interim reports or recommendations have been issued.

It has already confirmed it lacks the mandate to examine what happened to detainees after they were given to Afghan security forces - either under the new or old transfer agreements. Now that those transfers have been suspended, it is not clear what value any recommendations will have about a mostly changed system now no longer in use.

The board did not respond to written questions from The Globe and Mail seeking when it might conclude, what it was currently doing and how much it has cost during its first year of existence.

Meanwhile, the Military Police Complaints Commission, an independent, civilian body, also launched an investigation on receipt of the documents found by Prof. Attaran. Both that probe and a second MPCC investigation based on a complaint made by Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association remain unfinished.

Prof. Attaran said he has been told "the MPCC is being obstructed by the Canadian Forces, who refused to give the MPCC evidence."

Stanley Blythe, chief of staff at the MPCC, said "good progress" has been made, although he confirmed that MPCC investigators are waiting - and have been for months - to interview witnesses not yet released by the CFNIS probe. Mr. Blythe said he could provide no estimate when either MPCC investigation might conclude.

Given the delays, which he believes the military is deliberately creating, Prof. Attaran said, "it is totally baffling to me why the MPCC has not invoked its power to hold a public hearing as it is entitled to do."

Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink

"I am proud to be a member of the American Psychological Association, proud for what APA has stood for in these troubling times, and deeply grateful to the Association for supporting me and my colleagues in our quest to ensure that all in our custody are treated with human decency and respect."
— Larry C. James,
Colonel, United States Army, June 23, 2007

"This is my second tour at Gitmo, Cuba. I was also the first psychologist at Abu Ghraib. I'm going to repeat what I said earlier. If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die. If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to get hurt."
— Larry C. James,
Colonel, United States Army, June 23, 2007
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Sounds good Colonel James. Great sound bytes. Good enough to convince thousands of psychologists that you're the real thing, as American as Stealth bombers and pre-emptive war. Who would possibly think that psychologists in the military would engage in torture after listening to you? Good enough that you became the poster child for the American Psychological Association as they pulled out all stops in their attempts to defeat those few psychologists opposed to torture, inhuman conditions and the disappearance of habeas corpus. They brought you all the way from Guantanamo for their song and dance show. Not even most psychologists, those who are supposed to understand human behavior, saw through your charade, as you convinced them that their professional association really IS on the side of truth and goodness.

The APA used you to introduce a different resolution against torture for the second year in a row, in an attempt to deflect the dissenters and detractors. APA's use of resolutions as a means to stop torture have proven to be simply a sleight of hand to appease the multitudes and the media, but actually signifies nothing.

Perhaps you'll repeat history, Colonel James. In 2006, Surgeon General Kevin Kiley was used by APA leaders to offer the 2006 "Resolution on Torture." Remember him? He lost his job a few months after presenting THAT resolution, another military officer who was willing to overlook the inhumane treatment of people that were considered to have no value.

But you blew it this week, Colonel. One might say you fell out of role, and the truth became evident. Though you are in charge of the team of psychologists that assists interrogators at Guantanamo, when the Associated Press reported last week on the just-revealed Camp 7 at Guantanamo where detainees from CIA secret detention facilities are kept, including the detainees who HAVE been water-boarded, including Abu Zubaydah who endured water-boarding with two psychologists present, you stated you just don't want to know about it.

"I learned a long, long time ago, if I'm going to be successful in the intel community, I'm meticulously -- in a very, very dedicated way -- going to stay in my lane," he said. "So if I don't have a specific need to know about something, I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it."

You, the military psychologist, who spoke so piously of how much you cared to protect detainees at Gitmo, who so scrupulously defended your character as patriotically humane - didn't you just sell out the fate of those detainees for the advancement of your career?

You commanded the Guantanamo Behavioral Science Consultation Teams from January 2003 to mid-May 2003, during a time when the International Committee of the Red Cross stated that the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo amounted to torture.

Under your command and supervision, psychologists from the military's Survival, Evasion Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program were instructed to apply their expertise in abusive interrogation techniques to the interrogations of detainees in Guantanamo, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General.

According to the Standard Operating Procedure manual at the time that you were the Chief Psychologist at Guantanamo, all incoming detainees were to be held in isolation for the first 30 days "to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process" and were not entitled to the protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions.

So while you and the American Psychological Association continue to assert that military psychologists are necessary at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other detention sites - to build rapport, to "protect" the detainees, to stop other military personnel from harming and killing the detainees - you're telling reporters that the secret to your success is to look the other way. What else could it mean when you say, "if I'm going to be successful in the intel community . . . I'm meticulously . . . going to stay in my lane . . . I don't want to know?"

The fact is, for you and our professional organization, it's all about keeping your job. You toe the military line for your paycheck. And the APA toes the military line to curry the favor of the Department of Defense and the current administration for contracts. All the rest is window dressing, such as the APA's gratuitous letter to Attorney General Mukasey this week. The letter is a lobbyist's masterpiece, suggesting that waterboarding is legal torture in one paragraph and then asking the AG to please hurry up and render a legal ruling in the next.

But as you seem not to be motivated by considerations of ethics, Colonel James, perhaps the potential for life in prison might have more impact. At the Nuremberg Trials, it was held that merely following orders will not absolve you from criminal liability. In that rare moment of truthiness, you told us that your guilty knowledge may pose inconveniences for you: "[I]f I don't have a specific need to know about something, I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it."

Gitmo's Makeover to Reduce Hostilities

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Seeking to ease conditions for angry and frustrated Guantanamo detainees, the commander of the prison camps has instituted language classes, a literacy program and wants to open communal areas for men held in isolation 22 hours a day.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Army Col. Bruce Vargo, commander of the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, said he hopes the changes at Guantanamo, where 275 men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban are held, will lead to fewer attacks on guards.

The makeover contrasts with the situation at this isolated base in 2006, when commanders hardened the detention camps in the wake of a guard-prisoner clash and suicides of three detainees. They converted a new medium-security jailhouse into maximum-security, eliminating communal living areas - a move which Vargo said he intends to reverse.

"Make no bones about it, these are very dangerous men," Vargo said, citing incidents in which detainees splashed guards with bodily fluids, and head-butted, kicked and bit them. "But at the same time, you have to provide them with some type of out."

Attorneys for detainees say the assaults are partly triggered by frustration among men who, more often than not, were captured far from any battlefield and have been locked up for as many as six years with no real chance to confront accusations that they are enemy combatants.

David Remes, a Washington attorney who represents 16 Guantanamo detainees, said the military should recognize it must improve its treatment of detainees and not justify these changes by saying they are aimed at reducing assaults. He said most detainees are in virtual solitary confinement, reportedly leading to mental problems.

There is now TV night for some of the best-behaved detainees, with DVDs of movies and TV shows shown on a high-definition Sony TV. A classroom in Camp 4, designated for the most compliant detainees, has metal desks and plastic chairs. Detainees are leg-shackled to the classroom floor.

Language courses have begun in English, Arabic and Pashto, Vargo said in the interview last week. He intends to soon offer classes on diverse subjects, perhaps including oceanography.

"If we can get them to focus on humanities programs, if we can get them to focus on recreation, then their sole focus is not going to be on the guard force," Vargo said. "It is my thought that if they are focused on those things, then the level of assaults and things of that nature will go down."

At Camp 4, dozens of birds sat on coils of barbed wire, chirping and singing, as Soldiers escorted AP journalists inside. Five detainees in loose-fitting white shirts and pants sat at tables outside their communal living area, sharing a rice dish. On the other side of a chain-link fence, a bored guard standing in the shade of a plastic tarp watched the men. White and tan prison uniforms freshly washed by the detainees hung along the fence, drying in the winter sun. Guantanamo rules prohibit journalists from talking to detainees.

"I have instituted a very strict vetting program to get into Camp 4," Vargo said. "If you abide by the rules and you get through the vetting program then we move you in there."
Living conditions in Camps 5 and 6 are far stricter. Detainees are isolated up to 22 hours a day in individual cells.

Vargo said he wants to make Camp 6 more like Camp 4, and has mock-ups of modifications that will allow detainees to use communal areas. He wants to keep guards separate from the detainees but still enable them to check on each prisoner every three minutes to prevent suicides.

"We're doing something that is probably different in that this is a high-security detention facility with the amenities of a lower security facility," Vargo said. "That's what I'm trying to achieve."
Zachary Katznelson, an attorney representing detainees, said he welcomes planned changes.

"Right now the men in Camp 6 sit in steel boxes without windows for at least 22 hours a day," he said. "They have no mental stimulation, nothing to do.
"But the real issue remains the fact that the men are being held without charge or trial," Katznelson added. "English lessons do not equal a return to American values like due process. It's just putting lipstick on a pig."

Jailed preacher faces US extradition

Lawyers for Abu Hamza were scrambling last night to appeal against a formal order by the home secretary for the radical preacher's extradition to the US.
Jacqui Smith signed the order yesterday afternoon, meaning Abu Hamza would be sent to the US to face a possible life sentence on terrorism charges within a month, unless his lawyers appeal within 14 days.

Abu Hamza and his supporters used threats and violence to take over a mosque in Finsbury Park, north London, which they turned into an academy for jihadi terrorism. He is serving a seven-year sentence in Britain for inciting hatred, but the government wants him sent to the US before his jail term is completed.

Abu Hamza's lawyer, Muddassar Arani, told the Guardian her client would appeal within the time limit set down in extradition law: "They've used evidence gained from torture to implicate him in terrorism," she said. She claimed that one person who implicated the preacher had been tortured in a US-run secret prison, and another alleged witness had been tortured in Guantánamo Bay.

Arani said one ground of appeal would be the threat that Abu Hamza would be held in a US supermax prison where he would be denied human contact: "It will be inhuman and degrading treatment, he will be in total isolation, he will have no human contact with anyone." The US alleges Hamza was in contact with Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists and aided the hostage-taking of 16 western tourists in Yemen in December 1998 that ended in the deaths of three Britons. He is also charged with attempting to set up a training camp for "violent jihad" in Oregon in 1999

Kandahar governor denies torture claim

Khalid says he's never interrogated or abused a prisoner in custody; Hillier says governor is doing "phenomenal work"

OTTAWA and WASHINGTON — The governor of Kandahar says he's never interrogated, much less abused, a prisoner in his government's custody.

Asadullah Khalid told The Canadian Press that the treatment of Afghan prisoners should be a military issue, not a political one.

Mr. Khalid's response to allegations he was involved in the torture and abuse of prisoners comes a day after Canada's top soldier, General Rick Hillier, praised him for doing "phenomenal work."

Mr. Khalid said he doesn't go around to prisons and interrogate people because it isn't his job. And he said his accuser likely never met him but was just looking for a way out of jail.

Mr. Khalid said the government of Afghanistan is stronger now and in control of the conditions in prison.

Canada's top soldier says the governor of Kandahar province is doing "phenomenal work," and that allegations of torture against him are up to Afghans to investigate.

While the opposition has asked why Canadians weren't informed about the allegations 10 months ago, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the prisoner who made the charges against Mr. Khalid was not handed over by Canadians and that it's an issue for Kabul to deal with.

Mr. MacKay and Gen. Hillier made their remarks as opposition members demanded that the Harper government put pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to investigate the allegations. They also wanted to know what the Department of Foreign Affairs did with the information and why it has taken this long for it to emerge.

Gen. Hillier confirmed he was aware of allegations against the governor, but said it is up to the Afghan government to deal with them. He also praised Mr. Khalid for the work he has done in Kandahar.

"Governor Asadullah has been doing some phenomenal work in Kandahar province. Obviously, we have worked with him because he is the governor there. And we have seen some incredible changes in the province, and if there's an issue of any kind of impropriety whatsoever, that's an issue for the Afghanistan government."

According to a censored report published in The Globe and Mail yesterday, a prisoner held in Kandahar told two Canadian officials last April of interrogations as well as a beating and electric shocks he received from an individual whose identification was blacked out. Sources have told The Globe that "the governor" were the censored words, in reference to Mr. Khalid.

Outside the House of Commons, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said Canada should use its influence with Mr. Karzai to have the matter investigated. He was also angry that the federal government did not disclose the incident when it first occurred.

"We're not there to cover things up, we're not there to cover up for some guy who's corrupt. We're not there to cover up for some guy who's allowing beatings to go on in a private jail," Mr. Rae said.

In the House, Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale called the incident a cover-up.

"Has the government even bothered to investigate the allegations against Mr. Khalid as specifically required under Canada's detainee-transfer agreement?"

Mr. MacKay said that the prisoner who made the complaint had not been transferred by Canadian Forces into Afghan detention.

"The allegation with respect to the governor is not a Canadian-transferred prisoner," Mr. MacKay said.

"Second, with respect to the governor of Kandahar, let us not forget that this is an individual appointed by the sovereign elected government of Afghanistan."

He noted that when Canada did hear of a credible complaint from a Canadian-transferred prisoner, an investigation was launched. The government also stopped transferring detainees in early November after that incident.

In Kandahar, Mr. Khalid's staff said yesterday that the governor would respond to the allegations that a secret prison was located inside his compound and that he had personally engaged in torture and abuse of detainees. However, the governor didn't return calls yesterday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was told last spring by Canadian diplomats of the allegations against Mr. Khalid, Graziella Piccolo, an ICRC spokeswoman in Kabul, confirmed.

But the ICRC won't tell Canada whether it investigated the allegations nor the outcome of any investigation.

"Should an authority, such as the Canadian government, decide to share information with the ICRC about detainees held by another authority, such as the Afghan government, the ICRC would address these concerns only with the detaining authorities."

Former foreign affairs minister John Manley, who headed a recent panel looking into the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, could not be reached for comment over the allegations against Mr. Khalid.

Meanwhile, Gen. Hillier said yesterday that Canadian soldiers won't be able to avoid combat if they remain in Kandahar and that switching places with a NATO country in a quieter region of Afghanistan is not an option, The Canadian Press reported.

While the Liberals have suggested remaining in Afghanistan only for training rather than combat, Gen. Hillier said the need for troops is in the south and that means combat.

"Certainly, if you're in Kandahar, you're going to be in combat operations," he said.

Gen. Hillier said that the report of the panel led by Mr. Manley that more troops are needed in the south only echoes the frustration of NATO military commanders from many countries.

Finally, Gen. Hillier told reporters that he was not angry last week when he heard that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's communications director, Sandra Buckler, had said the military did not inform the government that transfers of prisoners had been suspended, a statement she retracted the next day.

"I was on the beach in the Dominican Republic. I had a little break, and I heard about that, and, can I say this without everybody beating up on me across Canada? I was on my third rum and Coke, and I really didn't give a damn."

Gen. Hillier said the military did inform the government right away when the transfers were suspended in November.

No Secret C.I.A. Buildup For Pakistan

WASHINGTON — The top two American intelligence officials traveled secretly to Pakistan early this month to press President Pervez Musharraf to allow the Central Intelligence Agency greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups are all active, according to several officials who have been briefed on the visit.

But in the unannounced meetings on Jan. 9 with the two American officials — Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director — Mr. Musharraf rebuffed proposals to expand any American combat presence in Pakistan, either through unilateral covert C.I.A. missions or by joint operations with Pakistani security forces.

Instead, Pakistan and the United States are discussing a series of other joint efforts, including increasing the number and scope of missions by armed Predator surveillance aircraft over the tribal areas, and identifying ways that the United States can speed information about people suspected of being militants to Pakistani security forces, officials said.

American and Pakistani officials have questioned each other in recent months about the quality and time lines of information that the United States has given to Pakistan to use in focusing on those extremists. American officials have complained that the Pakistanis are not seriously pursuing Al Qaeda in the region.

The Jan. 9 meetings, the first visit with Mr. Musharraf by senior administration officials since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, also included the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the director of Pakistan’s leading military intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj. American officials said the visit was prompted by an increasing sense of urgency at the highest levels of the United States government that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts to destabilize the Pakistani government.

The C.I.A. has fired missiles from Predator aircraft in the tribal areas several times, with varying degrees of success. Intelligence officials said they believed that in January 2006 an airstrike narrowly missed killing Ayman al-Zawahri, the second-ranking Qaeda leader, who had attended a dinner in Damadola, a Pakistani village.

Pakistani authorities, in interviews, say they have more than 100,000 troops operating in the region, including a sizable force conducting what they said was a major offensive in South Waziristan. But in the White House, the Pentagon and the C.I.A., frustrations remain high, and there is concern that Mr. Musharraf’s political problems will distract him from what the administration regards as its last chance to take aggressive action.

Despite the insistence of administration officials that the United States and Pakistan have a common goal in fighting Al Qaeda, Mr. Musharraf has made clear in public proclamations that it is far from his first priority. At the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week, Mr. Musharraf said several times that the 100,000 Pakistani troops that he said were now along the border were hunting for Taliban extremists and “miscreants,” but he also said there was no particular effort being put into the search for Qaeda fighters.

In Washington, however, the Bush administration has said that fighting terrorists, chiefly Al Qaeda, is the primary purpose of the $10 billion in American aid that has been sent to Pakistan, mostly for reimbursements for the cost of patrolling the tribal areas. President Bush has often praised Mr. Musharraf for fighting terrorism, pointing out that Al Qaeda has tried to kill the Pakistani leader. But White House officials were silent when Mr. Musharraf said this week that his efforts were focused on the Taliban, and that the main problem the United States faced was in Afghanistan, not Pakistan.

Accounts of the discussions between Mr. Musharraf and the intelligence officials were provided by American and Pakistani officials over the past two weeks after The New York Times inquired about the secret trip. While officials confirmed some details of the discussion, much remains unknown about the continuing dialogue between Islamabad and Washington.

The trip by Mr. McConnell and General Hayden, a 14,000-mile over-and-back visit for one day of discussions, occurred just five days after senior administration officials debated new strategies for dealing with Pakistan. No decisions were made at that meeting of the National Security Council, which gathered all of Mr. Bush’s top national security officials but not the president.

In the ensuing three weeks, however, the debate appeared to be intensifying, as senior American officials said they believed that American forces — whether as combat troops or trainers — could enhance the efforts of Pakistan’s military in the mountainous and lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

“The purpose of the mission,” a senior official said, “was to convince Musharraf that time is ticking away,” and that the increased attacks on Pakistan would ultimately undermine his effort to stay in office.

Other officials said that recent intelligence analysis indicated that Al Qaeda was now operating in the tribal areas with an impunity similar to the freedom that it had in Afghanistan before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The C.I.A. operatives in Afghanistan and the covert Special Operations forces there have made little secret of their desire to move into the tribal areas with or without Mr. Musharraf’s explicit approval. In the administration, there has been discussion of whether Mr. Bush should give orders to allow them more latitude. Mr. Musharraf has explicitly rejected that, and within days after Mr. McConnell and General Hayden’s departure, he told a Singapore newspaper that any unilateral action by the United States would be regarded as an invasion. In Davos, he dismissed the idea that Americans could be effective in the tribal areas.

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the United States was willing to send combat troops to Pakistan to conduct joint operations against Al Qaeda and other militants if the Pakistani government asked for American help. Mr. Gates said that Pakistan had not requested American assistance, and that any American troops sent to Pakistan would likely be assigned solely to train Pakistani forces. The top American commander in the region, Adm. William J. Fallon, visited Pakistan last Tuesday to discuss counterterrorism issues with senior Pakistani officials, including General Kayani.

American and Pakistani spokesmen confirmed that the meetings between Mr. Musharraf and American intelligence officials took place, but they declined to offer any details. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said in an interview that the meetings were about “improving coordination, discussing the war on terror, and filling the gaps between intelligence and operations,” but he declined to provide details.

Last Tuesday, the State Department’s counterterrorism chief, Lt. Gen. Dell L. Dailey, echoed some of those concerns, telling reporters that there were gaps in what the United States knew about the threat in the tribal areas. “We don’t have enough information about what’s going on there,” said General Dailey, who retired from the Army with extensive experience in military Special Operations. “Not on Al Qaeda. Not on foreign fighters. Not on the Taliban.”

In dealing with the American requests, Mr. Musharraf is conducting a delicate balancing act. American officials contend that now, more than ever, he recognizes the need to step up the battle against extremists who are seeking to topple his government. But he also believes that if American forces are discovered operating in Pakistan, the backlash will be more than he can control, especially because the Taliban and Al Qaeda are trying to cast him as a pawn of Washington. One result appears to be a compromise: Mr. Musharraf is willing, they say, to accept training, equipment, and technical help, but has insisted that no Americans get involved in ground operations.

Pakistani officials insist they are taking the militant threat seriously and have completed major operations in the Swat Valley to drive out extremists. In the past few days, about 1,000 Pakistan Army troops and Frontier Corps paramilitary forces have also begun a three-pronged attack against the South Waziristan stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader with links to Al Qaeda who is the main suspect in the assassination of Ms. Bhutto.

Prisoner transfers were stopped by mission commander

OTTAWA — An army general has told a Federal Court judge that Canadian troops stopped transferring enemy prisoners to Afghan authorities the day after a Nov. 5 prison visit found evidence of torture.

Brigadier-General André Deschamps, chief of staff to Canada's Expeditionary Forces Command and the first witness to testify as human-rights groups seek an injunction against the transfers, said the decision was made by Col. Christian Juneau.

Col. Juneau was acting commander of Canada's military effort in Afghanistan when Canadian officials heard stories of abuse from prisoners being held in a Kandahar prison.

The decision came after the Conservative government ridiculed its opponents for raising torture allegations and Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused them of being pro-Taliban.

Brig.-Gen. Deschamps told Federal Court Justice Anne Mactavish that no prisoners have been transferred since that prison visit.

But Paul Champ, the lawyer for Amnesty International Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, was continually thwarted in his efforts to learn more.

Defence lawyers repeatedly sprang up and claimed National Defence Act protections when Mr. Champ asked why the government never told Canadians about the policy change, where the detainees are now and how many there are.

Brig.-Gen. Deschamps did say the prisoner facility at Kandahar airfield has not been expanded since the decision.

Civil libertarians and opposition parties have warned that Canada could be violating the Geneva conventions by turning over captives to Afghan authorities with the knowledge they could be tortured.

The two groups have sued Ottawa in an effort to block further transfers.

A prisoner told Canadian officials he'd been beaten unconscious, whipped with electrical cables, belted with a rubber hose, and he showed Canadians the bruises and told them exactly where they could find the torture instruments.

Others claimed they'd been tortured with electricity.

Government lawyer J. Sanderson Graham sent Amnesty International a letter this week explaining the policy change after the group pressed for details.

The government kept its decision under wraps, even as it prepared to fight rights groups seeking a halt to transfers in court Thursday.

"Canadian authorities were informed on November 5, 2007, by Canada's monitoring team, of a credible allegation of mistreatment pertaining to one Canadian-transferred detainee held in an Afghan detention facility," the lawyers said in a letter to Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

"As a consequence there have been no transfers of detainees to Afghan authorities since that date," the letter confirmed.

"It's staggering," Jason Gratl, president of the BCCLA said of the government's belated admission. "In matters as important as complicity in torture and its conduct of war, the government owes Canadians some explanations in an open and frank manner."

The government, which is trying to drum up support for extending the Afghan mission, only revealed it had ceased transfers as it tried to make a deal with Amnesty and the BCCLA to drop their application for an injunction.

But Ottawa refused a counteroffer in which it would have agreed to give seven days notice before resuming transfers.

It's not clear whether troops are still taking prisoners only to release them, holding them in temporary cells run by Canadian Military Police on Kandahar Air Base or once again turning prisoners over to U.S. forces, which operate a prison at Bagram in Afghanistan.

"Concerning the matter of detainees, the number of detainees, if they are being transferred or not, these are all operational matters and are the responsibility of the Canadian Forces. The Government will not provide any comment on operational matters," said Sandra Buckler, spokeswoman for Mr. Harper.

The letter to Amnesty and the BCCLA continued: "Canada will resume transferring detainees when it believes it can do so in accordance with its international legal obligations."

Among those obligations is a Geneva Conventions prohibition against handing prisoners over to those who would abuse or torture them.

Given the widely documented and widespread abuse and ill-treatment that is rife in Afghan prisons, Mr. Gratl said he "could not foresee detainee transfers resuming in the foreseeable future.

"The government's decision amounts to a concession that the May, 2007, monitoring agreement has failed to prevent torture by Afghan authorities," he said.

That agreement, which allows for follow-up inspections, was negotiated only after former defence minister Gordon O'Connor's assurances that the International Committee of the Red Cross would report abuse of transferred prisoners back to the Harper government were shown to be wrong.

More than a month after it stopped handing prisoners over to Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, the Harper government sent a senior general to give a sworn affidavit in the case brought by Amnesty and BCCLA.

The rights groups wanted transfers banned, claiming the government is bound by both international law and the Canadian Constitution from delivering detainees to those likely to torture or abuse them.

Building a NATO detention facility, perhaps on the Kandahar base, which currently houses more than 10,000 troops, has been repeatedly suggested by international human-rights groups. Canada and most NATO nations are opposed.

"The long-term, indefinite detention of detainees in such circumstances would be inconsistent with the sovereignty of Afghanistan," Gen. Deschamps said.

Detainee timeline

2001

Dec. 19: Then-defence-minister Art Eggleton reveals that Canadian forces, specifically commandos from Joint Task Force 2, have joined the war, sparking concerns about whether troops would turn captured Afghans over to U.S. authorities.

2002

Jan. 21: Canadian commandos turn three captured al-Qaeda fighters over to the U.S. military.

Jan. 28: Then-prime-minister Jean Chrétien says the government is reviewing its policy on prisoners and that opposition concerns are "hypothetical" because none have been taken.

Jan. 29: Mr. Eggleton admits he learned eight days earlier that Canadian commandos had turned over prisoners without any assurances about whether they would be treated as prisoners of war.

Feb. 6: U.S. President George W. Bush says that Taliban prisoners would be considered POWs under the Geneva Conventions, but al-Qaeda prisoners would not.

Feb. 7: Both Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Eggleton say they are satisfied with this guarantee.

2005

Dec. 18: General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, signs an agreement with Afghanistan's Defence Minister stipulating that detainees handed from Canadian to Afghan custody will be treated in accordance with the third Geneva convention, which forbids torture and other inhumane treatment.

2006

May 31: Defence Minister Dennis O'Connor says the International Committee of the Red Cross is monitoring detainees, and will report prisoner abuse to Canada.

2007

February: Investigations are launched into the treatment of Afghan detainees after The Globe and Mail publishes allegations of abuse.

Feb. 21: Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association file an application in Federal Court seeking a judicial review of the military's detainee-handover policy, questioning whether Canadian soldiers abroad are legally bound by the Geneva Conventions.

March 21: Mr. O'Connor apologizes for providing inaccurate information. "I would like to be clear: The International Committee of the Red Cross is under no obligation to share information with Canada on the treatment of detainees transferred by Canada to Afghan authorities," he tells the House of Commons. "The International Committee of the Red Cross provides this information to the country that has the detainees in its custody, in this case, Afghanistan."

April 23: During 30 face-to-face interviews with The Globe and Mail, Afghans detained by Canadian soldiers and sent to Kandahar's notorious jails say they were beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and subjected to electric shocks during interrogation.

April 24: Stephen Harper brushes off calls for his Defence Minister's head and dismisses the furor over the torture of Afghans captured by Canadian soldiers as "allegations of the Taliban. ... We do not have evidence that [the torture] is true."

April 26: The Harper government buckles and announces a new deal providing Canadian officials with full access to Afghan jails.

July 9: It is learned that Gen. Hillier's office has halted the release of documents relating to detainees captured in Afghanistan under the federal Access to Information Act, claiming that disclosure of any such information could endanger Canadian troops.

Sept. 22: Canada is unable to account for at least 50 prisoners it captured and turned over to Afghan authorities, frustrating efforts to put to rest concerns the detainees were subject to torture. Canadian sources blame the Afghans' shoddy record-keeping and suggest the detainees have likely returned safely to their homes. But officials familiar with Kandahar's justice system say the possibility of foul play cannot be dismissed.

Nov. 13: Turning Afghan detainees over to known torturers breaks international law, and Canada, along with other NATO countries should impose an immediate halt to transfers, Amnesty International says.

Nov. 15: Canadian officials confirm they have evidence a Taliban detainee showed signs of physical abuse, the seventh such allegation made by detainees since Canada began systematically visiting Afghan prisoners in May.

2008

Jan. 22: Compelling evidence that Canadian-transferred detainees are still being tortured in Afghan prisons emerges from the government's own follow-up inspection reports.

Terrorist gets life in embassy plot

NEW YORK -- The admitted terrorist said he had been a naive adolescent brainwashed into plotting to blow up American embassies. He called himself a changed man, a would-be ophthalmologist who deserved a chance to pursue his goal.

But a federal judge in Manhattan sentenced Mohammed Mansour Jabarah to life in prison, saying she gave him credit for repudiating violence but couldn't overlook what he had done.

"Actions speak louder than words," U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones said as she imposed the sentence Friday.

She had listened to the Canadian citizen deliver a convoluted 20-minute speech blaming his past on evil men who exploited his youth and inexperience.

"I am not a ruthless, infamous and notorious terrorist," said Jabarah, who was 19 when he was captured in Oman after the collapse of his bombing plot. "I do not believe in terrorism, violence and killing."

Jabarah has been in U.S. custody since 2002, when Canada's intelligence service turned him over to the FBI. He secretly pleaded guilty to terrorism charges as part of a short-lived plea bargain.

For a few months, he was a valuable resource in the hunt for al-Qaida leaders. He gave investigators information about Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described his personal meetings with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and detailed his interactions with several other high ranking al-Qaida lieutenants.

He also described his own involvement in a terrorist plot. After graduating from high school in St. Catharines, Ontario, where he had lived since a move from Kuwait at age 12, Jabarah slipped into Afghanistan and trained at al-Qaida camps in 2001. Prosecutors said he was preparing his first major operation - bomb attacks on American and Israeli embassies in Singapore and the Philippines - when the scheme was foiled by a round of arrests.

"This is far from a half-baked plot," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Rodgers said, noting that tons of explosives had been bought and a suicide bomber selected.

"Mr. Jabarah is the real deal," Rodgers said.

After Oman's intelligence service captured Jabarah, he was brought to Canada. He was interrogated and told he had two choices: Go to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, or switch sides and become an informant.

By July 2002, he had pleaded guilty in a closed court session and moved into a series of FBI safe houses in the United States, where he lived in relative comfort, with a stereo and his own kitchen.

His work as a snitch ended a few months later, when FBI agents searching his quarters discovered jihadist writings, a knife and rope hidden in his luggage, and instructions on how to make explosives. They also found a list bearing the initials of U.S. agents and prosecutors. Investigators believed it was a roster of people Jabarah intended to kill.

TOP SECRET: Detention Criteria GTMO

1. Purpose. To clarify the detention criteria for battlefield detention and long-term detention at GTMO.

2. References. CENTCOM Message, Modification 1 to Implementing Guidance on Detainee Screening and Processing for Transfers of Detainees in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (GTMO)

3. The following is the SECDEF criteria for detention : CENTCOM should, as necessary, obtain control over the following Enemy Combatants:

a. (S) all al Qaeda personnel.

b. (S) all Taliban leaders (Afghan and non-Afghan).

c. (S) non-Afghan Taliban personnel (including named individuals as identified by the

intelligence community; anyone with special skills or education, such as those known

as “professor” or “engineer”; and anyone who speaks a western language).

d. (S) any others whom screeners think may pose a threat to us interests, may have

intelligence value, or may be of law enforcement interest.

4. The definitions applicable to this guidance are:

a. (S) al Qaeda: Usama bin Laden and his supporters, mostly Arab but including

many nationalities, fighting against the US and coalition forces.

b. (S) Afghan Taliban: Afghan officials and fighters of the former regime.

c. (S) Taliban leaders: political officials of the former regime, or commanders of

battalion equivalent sized units, normally 05/06.

d. (S) non-Afghan Taliban: foreign fighters for the former regime (other than al Qaeda).

e. (S) Enemy Combatant (EC): for purposes of this guidance, any person that US or

allied forces could properly detain under the laws and customs of war. For purposes of

this conflict, an EC includes, but is not limited to, a member or agent of al Qaeda, the

Taliban, or another international terrorist organization against which the United States

is engaged in armed conflict.

5. This criteria applies to initial detention in the field and for continued long-term

detention at GTMO. For those in the field, it is essential to understand that US forces

are not authorized to detain “common criminals” that have no connection to combat

activity as stated in the criteria.

6. The place of detention (Afghan prison, BCP, or GTMO) of low level ECs (“foot

soldiers”) who are a threat to US forces, yet have no intelligence value, is a separate

and distinct issue currently being assessed at the highest levels. This will be addressed

separately in the near future once a decision is made.

"Torture is to be expected says appellate court in voiding suit"

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Friday threw out a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a ruling that exonerated 11 present and former senior Pentagon officials.

It appeared to be the first time that a federal appellate court has ruled on the legality of the harsh interrogation tactics that U.S. intelligence officers and military personnel have used on suspected terrorists held outside the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The detainees allege that they were held in stress positions, interrogated for sessions lasting 24 hours, intimidated with dogs and isolated in darkness and that their beards were shaved.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren’t recognized as “persons” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from “substantially burdening a person’s religion.”

The court rejected other claims on the grounds that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had certified that the military officials were acting within the scope of their jobs when they authorized the tactics, and that such tactics were “foreseeable.”

“It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably `seriously criminal’ would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants,” Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in the court’s main opinion.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented with parts of the opinion, saying that “it leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantanamo are not `person(s).’

‘`This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human,” Brown wrote.

After being held for more than two years, the four men were repatriated to Britain in 2004, where they were freed within 24 hours without facing criminal charges, said Washington lawyer Eric Lewis, who represented them along with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

Three of the men — Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed — say they traveled to Afghanistan from Pakistan in October 2001 to provide humanitarian relief but were seized by an Uzbek warlord in northern Afghanistan the next month and sold to U.S. troops for bounty money. The three said they were unarmed and never engaged in combat against the United States.

The fourth, Jamal al Harith, said he’d planned to attend a religious retreat in Pakistan in October 2001 but was ordered to leave the country because of animosity toward Britons. When he tried to drive a truck home via Iran and Turkey, he says, his truck was hijacked at gunpoint and he was handed over to the Taliban, who jailed him and accused him of being a spy. When the Taliban fell after the U.S.-led invasion, he was detained and transported to Guantanamo.

The detainees filed suit in October 2004 against former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and nine other senior military officers. They allege that the Pentagon officials violated the Alien Tort Statute, the Geneva Conventions, the religious freedom law and the Constitution with their harsh treatment.

In upholding a lower court’s rejection of all the claims but those under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the circuit court said that the interrogation tactics, which Rumsfeld first authorized in 2002, were “incidental” to the duties of those who’d been sued.

“It is an awful day for the rule of law and common decency,” said Lewis, the detainees’ attorney, “when a court finds that torture is all in a day’s work for the secretary of defense and senior generals. . . . I think the executive is trying to create a black hole so there is no accountability for torture and religious abuse.”

Lewis said his clients intended to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.

Detainee file was overseen by ‘Tiger Team’

A specially created team of military officers played a key role in severely limiting what the Canadian public was allowed to know about the country’s role in Afghanistan.

Originally created to assist an investigation into the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan, the new team – codenamed Tiger Team – quickly came to scrutinize virtually every public access to information request dealing with the Afghan mission, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

In effect, the team added an extra layer of scrutiny to the access to information process, making it so complicated that an access to information official eventually described it as “convoluted.”

The added scrutiny also caused many delays in responding to requests, as access to information officers struggled to understand the new system at a time when the government faced harsh criticism over the treatment of detainees.

Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence implemented a new process last spring for judging what Canadians could and couldn’t know about the Afghan mission – a process that included the creation of a military “investigation support team” that oversaw the release of documents.

At first, the team was supposed to handle just information relating to a number of Military Police Complaints Commission investigations into the detainee-handling process. However, it soon started dealing with virtually all Afghan-related access to information requests from the public.

According to documents obtained by The Globe through an access to information request, the Canadian Forces’ Strategic Joint Staff launched the investigation support team on March 5, 2007. At the time, two MPCC investigations and a board of inquiry were looking into the treatment of Afghan detainees by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

In particular, the investigations focused on three people detained on or about April 6 or 7 of 2006.

The investigation support team, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Dana Clarke, included members of various Forces branches.

“This is the first time that the [Canadian Forces] has been engaged in hostilities since the Access to Information Act was introduced in 1985,” reads a May, 2007, SJS document outlining the creation of the investigation support team.

“It has been a learning experience and a number of mistakes have been made. We have noted tendencies to be both too restrictive and too open in releasing information.”

However, the documents obtained by The Globe show very few instances where the new team erred on the side of openness.

The extent to which top Canadian Forces brass looked to restrict public information about operations in Afghanistan is made clear in a June 20 e-mail to National Defence’s director of Access to Information, Julie Jansen, sent by Brigadier-General Peter Atkinson.

“Any ATI request for information related to DETAINEES, or Battle Damage Assessments (any report, SOP, SIR, sitrep related to IEDs, Vehicle Damage, casualties, protection, armour enhancements) is to be severed in its entirety less the address group at the top of the correspondence,” Brig.-Gen. Atkinson wrote.

“The rationale for doing so, is that this information if allowed to go into the public domain can be used by our enemies ie the Taliban, to further target and make assessments on their effectiveness against our own troops … it is based on these issues that the information identified above cannot be released as it puts our troops at greater risk.”

But while blanket severance may seem easy to implement, the new process quickly caused confusion among DND access to information co-ordinators, as well as members of the Canadian Forces.

Co-ordinators reported trouble meeting deadlines, both because of the added layer of scrutiny by the investigation support team, and the added workload from the MPCC investigations.

One brigadier-general complained that while he supported the added scrutiny, he didn’t support the new process – specifically, the accountability trail in cases where the general signed off on certain severances and then SJS officials made further indistinguishable deletions.

There is also some confusion about where the new process fits within the access to information framework.

In a string of e-mails that begin with the brigadier-general’s accountability concerns, the Forces’ access to information deputy director makes it clear that the new process is purely internal and cannot supersede access to information legislation.

Still, the impact that Tiger Team had on restricting the flow of public information about Afghanistan appears to have been significant.

In early June of last year, Ms. Jansen voiced her concerns to Brigadier-General A.J. Howard about fully severing two items that were the subject of an information request. “We can’t just apply a blanket exemption based on speculations,” she wrote.

Brig.-Gen. Howard replied: “I will not address this any further by e-mail… If you would like to drop by my office so I can explain all of this to your satisfaction I would be happy for you to do so.

“My advice – tread carefully on both of these matters – there are very serious diplomatic and allied issues at stake here.”

It is unclear what the two items are – in the documents obtained by The Globe, they are fully severed.