Gen. Walter Natynczyk, Canada's chief of defence staff, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Canadian troops questioned the man who was picked up during operations in Zangabad. But it was the Afghans who took him into custody, Natynczyk said.
"We didn't take this person under custody," he said.
Funny, that's not what the soldiers who were present claim happened:
In one well-documented case in the summer of 2006, Canadian soldiers captured and handed over a detainee who was so severely beaten by Afghan police that the Canadians intervened and took the detainee back. Canadian medics then treated the man's injuries. The incident is documented in the field notes of Canadian troops, recounted in a sworn affidavit by a senior officer and confirmed in cross-examination by a general.
I'll take the troopers on the ground for credible evidence, thank you. Natynczyk wasn't there, so he's working from a politicized, sanitized version of the situation, and was no doubt ordered to make his statements to lend credibility to the crumbling façade of Peter Mackay's lies on this subject.
So, not only is the government lying to Canadians about this situation, they are failing to explain the lack of action when it was clear that there was evidence of Afghan officials mistreating prisoners - regardless of who captured them.
2 comments:
And now some 24 hours later the good general has changed his tune. Could be that he realised that lying to a Parliamentary committee is serious offence. Or it could be that he is p.o'd at being told to lie.
Hmmm... interesting.
And just how much else is Harper ordering his bureaucrats to distort?
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