Prisoners 'at risk of Afghan torture' - Amnesty

Amnesty International urged Nato nations today to halt transfers of prisoners to Afghan authorities, claiming they risked being tortured.

The London-based human rights group said it “is increasingly concerned about the fate of many detainees who face the risk of torture and other ill-treatment when they are transferred to Afghan authorities”.

Under the rules governing Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, its 41,000 troops in Afghanistan must hand over prisoners to the Afghans within 96 hours of their capture. The rules state that the International Red Cross or Red Crescent must be informed every time Nato takes a prisoner.

Many Nato nations – including Britain, Canada and the Netherlands – have also concluded agreements with the Afghan government guaranteeing detainees will not be mistreated and granting access to transferred prisoners, but Amnesty International says they do not provide enough safeguards.

“ISAF states must impose a temporary moratorium on detainee transfers,” Amnesty said in its 41-page report.

Nato said Amnesty’s concerns about the Afghan detention system should be looked into, but insisted that its policy for handing over prisoners met all international standards and rejected the group’s call for a moratorium.

“ISAF has no evidence of mistreatment or torture of detainees transferred by Nato to Afghan custody and I see no such evidence in this report,” alliance spokesman James Appathurai said.

“Afghanistan is a sovereign country with a constitution that requires the protection of human rights and which has the legal responsibility for detention of Afghans,” he added. “It is not for Nato to create a parallel detention structure outside the law of the land.”

The report referred to media reports earlier this year quoting prisoners handed over by Canadian troops who said they were subjected to beatings and electric shocks. In response to those reports, Canada has tightened its agreement with the Afghan authorities to monitor the treatment of transferred detainees.

However, Amnesty said it still did not go far enough.

Amnesty also complained that the Belgian and Norwegian militaries had lost track of prisoners transferred to the Afghans and referred to British television footage showing troops handing over a Taliban fighter to Afghan soldiers who expressed their wish to kill the prisoner.

The human rights group expressed particular concern over prisoners held by Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security. The report says scores of NDS detainees “have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including being whipped, exposed to extreme cold and deprived of food”.

The report praised British and Dutch efforts to monitor the treatment of prisoners in Afghan jails, but said the Red Cross and other independent monitors did not have enough access to detention centres, particularly in southern and eastern provinces where security concerns made it difficult to carry out regular inspections.

In its recommendations, Amnesty also called on Nato and other international players to step up support for efforts to improve Afghanistan’s prisons in introduce controls so that prisoners can be handed over without fear for their treatment.

Appathurai said allied governments already invested heavily in reform of the Afghan justice system, including the intelligence service.