Afghanistan Committee on April 14th, 2010

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Fine. Thank you.

I'm a little concerned about the desperate woman you talked about. She had to eat grass. That obviously would be terrible.

I've done quite a bit of reading about Afghanistan and the people. And one of the aspects of the Afghan people, and Muslims, in general, I think, is that they're very welcoming, you know, with the three cups of tea and all of those kinds of traditions. It would surprise me if someone in that situation in an Afghan village was not looked after by her neighbours.

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

Well, in the village, the people and their neighbours, Afghan people, also have their honour. They do not want to show what is going on and what they're going through to another person, because of the stigma. The next time they will say, “Okay, I helped you when you needed me,” and all this stuff. Therefore, the people will not help.

Also, in that village, most of the people were poor. In Kandahar they are poor. They don't even have drinking water. In that village, Kalantar village, the people did not even have clean drinking water.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I've been there. I understand.

So was everybody in the village eating grass?

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

No. That family, the woman, she told me, “I don't have money to pay for my husband's release, for freedom, and I don't even have money to pay for food, to buy food for my children.”

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

No, I understand. I'm just a little surprised, from what I've read about the Afghans, that they wouldn't look after each other.

You talked about your chain of command. What was your specific chain of command?

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

My first specific chain of command was a captain of CI. Then the second chain of command was ASIC. After, I worked for the general, and then my chain of command was Commander Laroche.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay, and to what level in that chain of command did you speak directly?

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

I spoke directly to ASIC.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You must have spoken directly to General Laroche, I assume, because you had a good relationship.

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

I had a good relationship, but the decision on whether to transfer or not to transfer and on the interrogation of detainees was part of ASIC, not part of HQ. He had the last say. If there was a problem, he would authorize the release or transfer, but if there was a case that was controversial....

And lo and behold, don't take Ottawa out of the loop, because any detainee information was being shared with Ottawa instantly. So anybody in Ottawa knows what's going on.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Can you tell me how you know that?

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

Okay. I know this because when I was working for MWT, the mobile warfare team, you're listening to the phone. There was a report that my colleague gave, and that was that they had listened to the phone of a Canadian citizen. After two or three minutes, a call came from Ottawa saying, “Okay, this is a Canadian citizen; you cannot do that.” Within two or three minutes, we were notified that this was a Canadian citizen, and you cannot hack into his computer or listen to his phone.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Do you have any idea who in Ottawa was at the other end of that communication?

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

Well, you should ask the Minister of Defence or....

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'm asking you. Do you have any idea who was at the other end of that communication?

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

It was government officials, like you.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

There was a member of Parliament at the other end of that communication?

[Ahmadshah Malgarai]

Probably you knew about it.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I don't know how many members of Parliament here get calls directly from Afghanistan, but I think probably very few or none.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Hawn. We'll have to come back to you in the second round.

We'll go to Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and our guests.

I'll do as others have done, if I may, and call you Mr. Pacha.

I'm going to read from a document from October 2007, which basically is a Canadian investigator writing comments about detainees. It says:

All detainees were captured in the compound of [name] who was confirmed to be TB [Taliban] commander. Furthermore, [name] tested positive during an explosive residue test and a large quantity of explosive, IED materials, weapons and ammunitions were also found inside his compound. During the interviews conducted, it is believe [sic.] that all the detainees were deceptive and they have a better knowledge on TB [Taliban] activity in their area. Based upon the above, it is recommended that [names] be transferred to the National Directorate of Security (NDS) for further questioning. Authorize the release of this report to NDS: CO ASIC.

I want to just show you this document, if I may, and ask you if you recognize this document. What I was reading was the end piece, the last paragraph. There are, I think, three pages there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Dewar, do you have the document for the rest of the committee members to see what you're passing out?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

If I can ask the question and respond to that....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly, but don't continue to read from documents that none of us have seen.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I have the paragraph that I read into the record. I can pass that out.