MIDDLE EAST:Nato forces in Afghanistan may be breaching their own operating rules by handing detainees to Afghan security services despite reports that they torture their prisoners, rights group Amnesty International said yesterday.
It said the fact that the torture and mistreatment reports were now so widely circulated made the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) members complicit when they handed over detainees.
Amnesty said in its report, Afghanistan: Detainees transferred to torture: ISAF complicity?, the allegations of torture particularly involved the National Directorate of Security (NDS). "ISAF states are under an international obligation not to hand over detainees to Afghan authorities where they will be at risk of torture and other ill-treatment," said Claudio Cordone, Amnesty's senior research director. "Such transfers should be suspended until effective safeguards are in place."
The 40-page report said ISAF troops from Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Norway were particularly at risk because of the detainee handover implications.
It specifically did not include the United States' Operation Enduring Freedom detention system.
It said five ISAF states had signed memorandums of understanding with the Afghan government on prisoner transfer and monitoring, with four more seeking to agree one.
Four of the remaining 14 ISAF states with more than 100 personnel in Afghanistan told Amnesty they did not have such a memorandum, and the remaining 10 either refused to comment or could not verify the existence of a memorandum, it said.
The report detailed allegations of Afghan torture of several detainees handed over by Canadian troops to the NDS.
"The obligation of ISAF states to protect individuals from such treatment cannot be discharged by relying upon bilateral agreements," said Mr Cordone. "These agreements are supposed to ensure that detainees are treated in accordance with international standards but have proved to be inadequate," he added.
The report called for the immediate suspension of detainee handovers until safeguards were in place, a complete reform of the Afghan detention system and full monitoring of detainees after resumption of handover.
Amnesty's Irish section's programmes director, Noeleen Hartigan, said: "Though there is no suggestion that Irish troops were involved in the specific cases cited in the report, as a contributing nation to the mission we have a duty of responsibility to ensure that the force we are a part of is not complicit in facilitating torture or other human rights abuses.
"There are seven Irish personnel serving in ISAF headquarters in Kabul. Until March of this year four of our soldiers had specific duties to liaise with the NDS on security matters, raising a need for clarity on the nature of their interactions."