BOARD SITS ON AFGHAN REPORT

Inquiry into fatal 2008 incident still not public

It was called Project Sand Trap. In 2008, Canada’s special forces unit Joint Task Force 2 faced allegations from one of its own soldiers that during the Afghan war one of its members gunned down an Afghan man who had raised his hands in surrender and that Canadian officers had failed to report an Afghan’s execution at the hands of U.S.-aligned forces. Military police launched an investigation that summer, a project that involved about a hundred interviews and the collection of evidence in both Canada and Afghanistan.

The investigation concluded in 2011, with military police announcing it found “no evidence that criminal acts were committed by any Canadian Forces members.” At the time police made few details public, instead handing the information it collected over to a board of inquiry, which was charged with addressing certain “non-criminal” issues that came to light during the investigation. It has now been a decade since the launch of Project Sand Trap, and though the reckoning over the Afghan war continues — with Australia and New Zealand recently launching investigations into war crimes allegations against their own special forces — the board of inquiry’s report on problems with Canada’s commando unit has still not been released.

The board of inquiry process provides recommendations to the military on policies and practices that might need to be changed. According to the Department of National Defence, the board that stemmed from Project Sand Trap submitted its final report at least two years ago.

“The board of inquiry into allegations of possible wrongdoing in Afghanistan was convened in February 2009, returned to its convening authority in 2013 and subsequently reviewed, signed off and approved by the chief of the defence staff in June 2016,” said DND spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier.

Paul Champ, an Ottawa human rights lawyer previously involved in legal efforts to protect Afghan detainees from torture, said some military boards of inquiry can be complex — in the past, those have taken around three years. “But you have to ask the question about this board of inquiry — what’s the point when it takes 10 years to come up with recommendations?”

What’s more, Champ said, the reports of boards of inquiry into controversial subjects tend to be held back by the Canadian military, feeding cynicism about the value of the overall process and whether the issues were even properly examined.

Military sources told Postmedia the inquiry’s report could be released later this year or next year as a member of the public has made a request for the document under the Access to Information Act. But it is unclear how much information will actually be released, as Canadian Forces legal officials have spent the past two years reviewing and removing sensitive material. While the reports of most boards of inquiry are not usually released to the public, the military has made exceptions in highprofile investigations such as the 2004 fire on board the submarine HMCS Chicoutimi, the circumstances surrounding the handling of an Afghan detainee in 2006 and the death of Canadian officer Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener while serving as a United Nations military observer during the 2006 conflict between Israel and Lebanon.

But the circumstances surrounding the Hess-von Kruedener board of inquiry illustrate how sensitive the Canadian Forces can be about putting such information into the public domain. In early 2008, DND posted on its website the 67-page report from the board of inquiry, which found Hess-von Kruedener’s death was caused by the Israeli military, and had been preventable. But less than a year later, the report was removed from the DND website. It was later republished on the site after investigative journalist Adam Day published a copy of the report and Hess-von Kruedener’s widow, Cynthia, accused DND and the Conservative government of the day of removing the report from the public domain to protect Israel’s reputation.

The allegations about Canadian special forces were originally reported by the CBC’s James Cudmore, who later left journalism to work for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and is now on another minister’s staff. A member of JTF2 had come forward with allegations that during a mission targeting a Taliban doctor one of the unit’s commandos had killed an Afghan who was trying to surrender.

Canadian military police also investigated a second incident in which U.S.-aligned forces, accompanying JTF2 during a Canadian-led raid, had executed an Afghan. The JTF2 soldier complained to Canadian officers about the execution but was sent home to Canada the next day.

Police investigated the allegations of negligence, assault and murder, but found that no criminal acts were committed by Canadians, who “acted within the rules of engagement in all instances.” But in a 2011 statement they added that “Information collected during the course of the investigation pertaining to non-CF members was brought to the attention of the appropriate foreign investigative authorities.”

“Information has also been passed to the board of inquiry which is addressing broader administrative aspects of allegations raised in the original criminal complaint,” police said.

Information about U.S.aligned forces’ alleged execution of an Afghan was passed on to U.S. authorities, military sources told Postmedia, but it is not known whether the U.S. investigated the claims further.

Other nations are now dealing with allegations involving their special forces in Afghanistan. Australia is investigating recent accusations from some special forces troops that a group of rogue soldiers in the Special Air Service Regiment executed an elderly Afghan prisoner and kept a running tally of the number of Afghans they killed. Members of Australian special forces are also alleged to have kept the prosthetic leg of a dead Afghan as a trophy and later used it as a beer tankard.

New Zealand’s government also launched an inquiry earlier this year into allegations its special forces killed six civilians and injured 15 during what has been described as a “revenge attack” on two Afghan villages.

OTHER NATIONS ARE NOW DEALING WITH ALLEGATIONS INVOLVING THEIR SPECIAL FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN.