Afghanistan grants Canada access to detainees

OTTAWA, May 3 (Reuters) Canada signed an agreement with the Afghan government today allowing it unfettered access to any prisoners handed over by Canadian troops, a move that responds to allegations that Afghan authorities were abusing detainees.

The detainee issue has dominated Parliament for the last two weeks as opposition politicians accused the minority Conservative government of ignoring evidence of possible torture by the Afghan police.

Critics say Canadian soldiers could be guilty of war crimes because they transferred the detainees at a time when Ottawa was aware that Afghan authorities regularly tortured prisoners.

International conventions prohibit a country from handing over prisoners if there is reason to suspect possible abuse.

Federal Court Judge Michael Kelen announced details of the agreement with Afghanistan on Thursday during a case brought by human rights groups demanding the transfers be halted immediately.

He told the court this was a major development that took the urgency out of deciding whether to block future transfers.

''It probably wouldn't have happened if this court hadn't been happening,'' he said of the agreement.

The deal provides for ''full and unrestricted access'' by Canadian officials to anyone transferred to Afghan authorities as long as they remain in custody. The Canadians can also interview prisoners in private.

The Globe and Mail newspaper said last week it had spoken to 30 detainees who alleged they had been tortured. The government initially dismissed the report as a rumor but later, as criticism mounted, said it would press Kabul for answers.

Justice Kelen said that aside from the Globe article, human rights groups had not provided any evidence of those transferred by Canada actually having been tortured, but relied on evidence that inhumane treatment is common in Afghanistan.

Amnesty International, one of the groups that had asked the court to block transfers of detainees, said the deal was a step forward but nothing short of the establishment of a Canadian or NATO prison, operated in conjunction with Afghanistan, would suffice.

''You don't prevent torture in a country where it is rampant and systematic as it is in Afghanistan by sending in monitors on an occasional basis. It simply doesn't work,'' Amnesty's Alex Neve told reporters.

A senior Canadian Forces officer with experience in the country, Col. Steven Noonan, told Amnesty's lawyer in preparatory cross-examination yesterday that he was concerned about things going sour if the Canadian military had to run a prison.

''Without the proper training, without experience in it, the execution of that may go wrong, as has been evidenced in my understanding of -- for example, the Abu Ghraib situation,'' according to a transcript of his remarks.

He was referring to abuse by some US troops of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

The Afghan detainee affair has been a major embarrassment for the government, as ministers have contradicted each other over what was being done about the prisoners and senior defense and foreign ministry officials sniped at each other as to who was to blame.

One poll released on Tuesday showed Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives had slipped into second place behind the opposition Liberals.

Canada has 2,500 soldiers in the Kandahar region as part of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan and is committed to staying there through February 2009.

REUTERS RS RAI2339