Afghanistan committee  Yes, actually, I was told that I could not go before the commission because of section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act . I was also told that the same section 38 also applied to testimony before this committee.

Afghanistan committee  I've never heard of that.

Afghanistan committee  No.

Afghanistan committee  He's quite a difficult guy, General Gauthier—somewhat unpleasant to deal with. He was a tough guy to talk to. I preferred to use the official channels rather than try to engage him, where he could simply just be rude for no particular reason. It was just a personal sort of way he had of dealing with people.

Afghanistan committee  I don't remember if I talked to her on these issues. Not that I recall.

Afghanistan committee  Yes, I talked to him quite a few times.

Afghanistan committee  I did. It was a little bit later, so it was more early 2007.

Afghanistan committee  Yes. I mean, there are still some issues that weren't quite fixed. It was in a sense of acquiring knowledge, so it took me a while to really understand the nature of our detainee system.

Afghanistan committee  I think the answer is that these people had been detained in Kandahar. They had been, according to their information, their allegations, tortured in Kandahar, but then had been transferred to Kabul. They seemed confused, didn't really seem to know what they were doing there, either.

Afghanistan committee  No, I don't speak any Pashtun.

Afghanistan committee  That's correct.

Afghanistan committee  We used someone from the embassy who had actually been jailed in that same jail under the Taliban. In the testimony there was a lot of body language, and the body language accorded with the interpretation. We've used this guy before. He's a reliable interpreter.

Afghanistan committee  On your previous points, I would just confirm that I have never heard a hint of a Canadian who has been involved in any of these things. My sense of the Canadian Forces is that they're extremely professional, very well trained, and maybe one of the best militaries in the world. I would share your high view of them.

Afghanistan committee  The information I had is that they were sharing cells. There were overcrowding problems in nearly all these prisons. In Sarposa in Kandahar, the so-called political, which are the security prisoners, are kept quite separate from the general criminal population. At the NDS jail we went to in Kabul, kind of by definition it has only political, meaning security prisoners.

Afghanistan committee  My sense from early on is that Gauthier.... I made sure to put him on the address list for these reports, and he would have told General Hillier. In April 2007 I deliberately added General Hillier to a key report, to put him by name, but I think the Gauthier-to-Hillier channel was a very reliable one.