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Military Police Complaints Commission
AFGHANISTAN PUBLIC INTEREST HEARINGSheld pursuant to section 250.38(1) of the National Defence
Act, in the matter of file 2008-042
LES AUDIENCES D'INTRT PUBLIQUE SUR L'AFGHANISTANtenues en vertu du paragraphe 250-38(1) de la Loi sur la
dfense nationale pour le dossier 2008-042
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGSheld at 270 Albert St.
Ottawa, Ontarioon Thursday, April 15, 2010
jeudi le 15 avril 2010
VOLUME 7BEFORE:
Mr. Glenn Stannard Acting Chairperson
Mr. R. Berlinquette Commission Member
Ms. R. Clroux Registrar
APPEARANCES:
Mr. Ron Lunau Commission counselMr. Nigel MarshmanMr. Matthew McGarveyMs. Danielle Barot
Mr. Alain Prfontaine For Maj Bernie Hudson, MajMr. V. Wirth Michel Zybala, Maj Ron Gribble,Ms. E. Richards LCol (Ret'd) William H. Garrick,Ms. H. Robertson CWO Barry Watson, MWO Jean-Yves Girard, Maj John Kirschner
Ms. Grace Pastine For Amnesty International andMr. S. Jodoin For B.C. Civil Liberties Association
Mr. M. Wallace For Capt(N) (Ret'd) Moore, CFPM
A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 2010
200 Elgin Street, Suite 1105 333 Bay Street, Suite900
Ottawa, Ontario K2P 1L5 Toronto, OntarioM5H 2T4
(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-
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(ii)
INDEX
PAGE
SWORN: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL DOUGLAS BOOT 1
Examination by Mr. Lunau 1
Cross-Examination by Ms. Pastine 61
Cross-Examination by Mr. Wallace 101
Cross-Examination by Ms. Richards 106
Re-Examination by Mr. Lunau 116
AFFIRMED: MAJOR DANIEL LAFLAMME 126
Interrogation Par Me Barot 126
Cross-examination by Ms. Pastine 196
Cross-examination by Mr. Wallace 238
Contre-interrog Par Me Prfontaine 245
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Ottawa, Ontario
--- Upon resuming on Thursday, April 15, 2010
at 9:00 a.m.
SWORN: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL DOUGLAS BOOT
MR. BERLINQUETTE: Thank you.
THE CHAIR: Good morning, all.
Mr. Lunau.
MR. LUNAU: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
EXAMINATION BY MR. LUNAU:
Q. And good morning, Colonel
Boot.
A. Sir, good morning.
Q. I would like to begin by
asking just some questions about your background
and, in particular, your military police
background.
A. Sir.
Q. Now, you served as the CEFCOM
PM, Provost Marshal, from August 2006 to July 2007?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is that correct? And at that
time you held the rank of Major?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay. Could you just give us
a brief overview of your military police career
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2007, you were replaced by Major LaFlamme?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, can you explain to the
Commission the structure at CEFCOM and where the
CEFCOM Provost Marshal fit into that structure?
A. Of course, sir.
Obviously, Commander CEFCOM was at
the top, Lieutenant General Michel Gauthier.
Underneath him was a number of his personal staff,
his executive assistant, his personal assistant.
Then, in essence -- and there were
some specialists, advisors, the JAG, medical
advisor and the like.
Then the CEFCOM was, in essence,
broken down into COS OPs, Chief of Staff
Operations, and COS support. Basically, the COS
OPs ran the G3. If I say something that sounds too
army or too military, please just stop me and ask
me to clarify.
The G3 is, in the continental
system, responsible for all operations. So he ran
the G2, which was intelligence, and the G3, which
was the operational realm.
The G4 ran all of the -- in
essence the support. So he ran the G4, which is
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logistics; G6, which is communications; all of the
enablers that help the operators do their job.
I worked directly for COS support,
who at the time during my tenure was Captain Mark
Eldridge.
Q. I take it that is Captain
Navy?
A. Sorry, Captain (Navy) Mark
Eldridge. Then over -- sorry. Then the other one,
the sort of over on the far right-hand side of the
org chart, would have been the director of staff,
and that was Colonel -- his name escapes me. Great
guy.
He runs all of the -- he ran all
of the bureaucracy of the headquarters. So he did
anything that helped the flow of paperwork and all
of that bureaucracy of the headquarters, and you
can imagine it was quite a big job.
Q. Can you tell us what your
particular duties were as CEFCOM Provost Marshal?
A. My primary duty was I was the
principal, and ultimately the sole, advisor to the
commander and all of his staff for the full range
of military police responsibilities. So I was an
advisor to him.
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operations where military police were involved, but
clearly our main focus and our main effort, as the
military police, was at -- in Afghanistan.
That said, of course, sir, because
we didn't have military police in other operations,
I often paid as much attention to some of the
smaller operations, because I might be the only
policeman or the only MP who had focus on some of
the operations, but obviously Afghanistan was our
primary -- our primary effort.
Q. Apart from the Afghanistan
mission, which was obviously quite important, can
you give the Commission some idea of how many
missions were under your purview?
A. I think at the time, there
were 27 missions. They were -- they were from
one -- we had one person in Iraq to 2,500 in
Afghanistan.
Most of the missions were fairly
small, double digit, you know, sort of low double
digits; some single digit presence. But I think
total there was, I think I remember briefing
somebody -- I think it was 27 at the time.
Q. Can you describe for us what
your work load was like?
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A. The term I often use is
"psychotic". It was unrelenting, you can
appreciate, the operational tempo in Afghanistan,
with 28 missions, 26 or 28 missions -- 27 missions.
And being the only military policeman, we would
have meetings daily. In fact, at times, there
would be two or three meetings ongoing at the same
time, and I would be expected to -- or be expected
to attend and represent the military police at
these meetings, and I would just have to make a
command decision and say, You know what? This
meeting is more important than this meeting.
I had an officer with me for a
short period of time, but she was focussed on sort
of the other missions and I paid most -- tried to
pay most attention to Afghanistan, but it was just
chaotic, made even worse of course in September
when we started with Op Medusa and the focus of
Afghanistan.
Afghanistan changed and it just
became -- overwhelming I think is not an
unreasonable way to describe it.
Q. To the extent that you can,
can you give the Commission some idea of the
adequacy of the resources available to you to do
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your job?
A. I would say we didn't have
enough resources to do the job.
When CEFCOM first stood up, we
were in fact scheduled to have -- we were scheduled
to have a Lieutenant-Colonel and about seven staff.
It may have been five, but, numbers, about that
number. You know, but that was a credible staff.
That could have provided a real planning and
support capability.
The problem with one person, of
course, is that I go on holidays, or I get sick, or
I'm at one meeting and I am unable to represent --
be represented at another meeting.
The problem was that CEFCOM came
out of another organization. It was as a result of
the devolution of another organization, and we were
limited; we were capped at the number of people
that could belong to CEFCOM.
And because of that, they just
decided we need just one military police officer to
provide support, because my job was -- was truly
the personal advisor to the commander on policing
and military policing issues. So that was how they
viewed it, is I was a personal advisor.
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Q. Okay. And turning to that
aspect of your duties, what types of advice did the
commander look to you for?
A. Primarily he was looking to
me for status of investigations, was within of my
big ones.
I also provided input -- and,
again, I wasn't just talking to the commander, of
course. I was talking to all of the staff. In
fact, I rarely tacked to the commander personally.
I did on occasion, but it wasn't all -- you know,
by no means was it a daily thing.
I was much more closely aligned
with -- even though I worked for COS support, chief
of staff support, I went to the OPs briefing every
day, and I was as involved with the operations as I
was in sort of the support, but things like close
protection, a classic example.
Close protection was quite a hot
topic, and I spent an inordinate amount of my time
deconflicting or trying to advise the staff as to
what I thought was a reasonable number of
bodyguards we needed to send in, because it was a
high value add. It was a very-much-in-demand
capability. We had very limited numbers.
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So we had to sort of, excuse me,
manage people's expectations as to how many
bodyguards we could send in, because the military
police provide close protection for high value
personnel.
Q. What about the J9? Can you
tell us how you would have interacted with the J9?
A. It was very informal. There
was no formal meetings. She and I -- we're talking
about Ms. Duschner, now? I just want to confirm
we're talking about Gabrielle Duschner?
Q. Yes. She was the J9.
A. Okay. I just want to make
sure of that. Firstly, it was fairly informal. We
sat beside each other often in the operations -- in
the daily operations meeting.
A lot of what I did was obviously
quite interesting, but there wasn't any formal,
formal connectivity. It was much more of an
informal nature.
She might say, Have you seen this?
Have you been told about this? What are you
thinking about this? And I would, you know, give
her my input, because she was a staff advisor, a
staff person. So, also, my job was to advise her,
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as well. She, being a civilian, might not
understand the roles and responsibilities of the
military police.
So, again, part of my job in a lot
of cases was to educate people on what we did, why
we did it and how we did it.
Q. Would you say that you were
intimately aware of communications or information
that the J9 received?
A. No, sir. I had no visibility
on the information, because most of what she
received came through her net, and most of what I
did -- and through DFAIT and the like, and most of
what I did came through from secure means, a
military secure means.
Q. Okay. We have heard
reference to a communications network called the C4
network. Did you have C4 connectivity?
A. No, sir, I did not. That was
-- I apologize. I didn't realize that was out
there. C4 is the DFAIT network. And she, and I
think one of her staff, had the only -- had the
access to it.
Q. Now, turning to your working
relationships with Task Force Afghanistan, did you
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have any command authority over the Task Force
Provost Marshal?
A. None whatsoever, sir. I had
technical authority as the senior technical
advisor, the senior technical military policeman,
but, no, absolutely no command authority.
Q. And just so that the
Commission understands the distinction, can you
explain the difference between command authority
and technical authority?
A. The way I describe it, sir,
is commanders tell, tactically tell, how to do
their job from a military perspective. I told them
how to do their job from a policing perspective.
So the commander could, for
example, say, I want the military police to guard
this facility.
I might disagree. I might say
that is not a good use of a police -- of a
policeman, but ultimately the commander could say,
I want the police to guard this facility.
If, however, they were actually
conducting investigations or something arose that I
felt maybe they should be conducting an
investigation or they had launched an
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investigation, I provided technical oversight for
that to make sure that they were doing all of the
right things.
So I could order them to do it, to
do an investigation, but it would have been an
unusual circumstance, unusual for me to have done
it, because, again, my job was much more to advise
the commander.
The difference is that in Task
Force Afghanistan, for example, the Task Force
Provost Marshal had the same role. He was the
principal advisor to the commander on policing
matters and military police support, but he also
commanded the military police in theatre, save for
the NIS.
Q. I was just going to ask you
about the NIS. Did you have either command
authority or technical authority over the NIS in
Afghanistan?
A. No. No, sir I did not. They
answered -- and the command relationship was
directly back to the CO of CFNIS. We provided --
we provided -- one of our roles was, we say in the
military, care and feeding.
We provided administrative support
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for them. We provided -- in essence, we wrapped
our arms around them to make sure they were taken
care of and they could get the -- they had the
tools necessary to do their jobs, like security and
safety and the like.
But from a command point of view,
they answered directly to the CO of CFNIS.
Q. Working our way up the
technical chain of command --
A. Sir.
Q. -- who in the technical chain
of command did you report to?
A. Theoretically -- and I say
theoretically -- the CANOSCOM Provost Marshal, who
was the Canadian Operational Support Command
Provost Marshal.
Q. That is C-A-N-O-S-C?
A. C-A-N-O-S -- C-A-N-O-S-C-O-M.
There were three -- there were four operational
commands, the dotcoms, as we call them. CEFCOM ran
Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, ran all
operations outside of continental North America.
Canada Command was responsible for
all operations in Canada and North America and, I
believe, Mexico, so continental North America.
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There is another command. Am I
allowed to talk about the other command? Canada
Command, CEFCOM, and CANOSCOM was responsible for
operational support to CEFCOM and to Canada
Command.
Q. Okay.
A. And then there was another
command after --
Q. I see.
A. Can I talk about that?
Q. Well, there is another
command?
A. There is another command.
MS. RICHARDS: I think that is
publicly known.
THE WITNESS: Okay. SOFCOM,
Special Operations Forces Command, and that is --
they do other things.
BY MR. LUNAU:
Q. They do other things?
A. They do other things.
CEFCOM, Canada Command, SOFCOM all had majors and
single individual majors as their Provost Marshal,
and that was it.
CANOSCOM, because we are seen --
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for the context. I was a Force employer. We took
-- I took military policemen who had been
Force-generated from the Army, Navy and Air Force
by CANOSCOM. They had trained them, they had
declared them operationally ready, and then they
handed them over to me, as Provost Marshal CEFCOM,
and to the commander of CEFCOM and to the task
Force commander to employ them.
Equally, they would Force-generate
military policemen to go to an internal -- to do a
domestic operation.
So CANOSCOM is primarily -- their
biggest responsibility is the Force generation of
the military police, because of course the military
police are commanded, here in Canada, by -- for the
most part, by the commanders of the Army, Navy and
Air Force.
The ones -- the military police
that work on each of the bases across Canada are --
do not come under the command of the Canadian
Forces Provost Marshal. They come under the
command of the various environmental commander.
So CANOSCOM's responsibility was
to -- is to Force generate these people, to
identify them, to train them, and then turn them
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over to a Force employer who will employ them. Too
much detail?
Q. No.
A. I am not quite sure I
answered your question. Sorry, sir. I got off on
a tangent there and I am not quite sure I answered
your question.
Q. No. I think that detail is
very helpful to us.
Now, in the organization or the
technical chain you have just described, where did
the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal fit in?
A. The Canadian Forces Provost
Marshal ultimately, as the senior military
policeman, was responsible for the way in which --
and ultimately is responsible for the way in which
the military police conduct their specialist
duties.
He, through the Deputy Provost
Marshal, police. The main mechanism by which they
did that was through what was known as a technical
directive. And this basically was to every -- in
every operation, the Canadian Forces Provost
Marshal, through the Deputy Provost Marshal police,
issues a technical directive. It tells the
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military policemen how to do their specialist duty,
which is to say their police function, when to
investigate, when to launch an investigation, how
to conduct the investigation.
In essence, it is the technical
authority and the technical directive by which we
-- they conduct a police investigation, remembering
that ultimately our policemen might not be doing,
on any given day, a too hard policing function.
If I am guarding the ammunition
depot, I am still a policeman, yes, but I am not
doing a policing function. I am doing a general
military duty function. Provost Marshal is not
responsible for how I conduct that duty.
If, however, I have to take my --
you know, my military hat off and put my red hat on
as a policeman, then I default back to -- I defer
back to the Provost Marshal on how I do my job as a
policeman.
Q. I think what you are
describing is what is known in the military as the
"soldier first" doctrine?
A. Absolutely. Absolutely, sir.
Ultimately, we are all soldiers. Our primary job
is to support the mission, and we can be called
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upon to do a military duty.
As I said, given that we're rather
stress trained, I think we're well -- we are
extremely highly trained. I will often tell or
advise the commander, as I have done before, Sir, I
do not think this is a judicious use of a highly
trained, high-speed, low-drag policeman.
And he will often, more times than
not, say, Thank you very much for your advice, and
don't let the door knob hit you wherever on the way
out. And, by the way, I want you to do this job.
Roger that, sir. And we will get on with the job.
Q. Now, while you were CEFCOM
Provost Marshal, did you have regular communication
with the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal?
A. Only because the definition
in my mind of "regular" is, you know, on sort of a
day-to-day or even a week-to-week or a structured
basis, no.
Once again, I dealt more with his
staff, because most of what I did could be dealt
with by his staff. And, moreover, I would often
say, Here is something -- you know, Rob Bell, who
was in the NIS, was the OPs officer, or if I was
dealing with detail police, I might say, This is
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something the Provost Marshal might want to hear
about.
But to say "regular", no.
Frequent, no. But routine I guess is a good way
of -- routine, but infrequent, contact with him. I
tried to go to his meetings whenever he had
meetings. I failed miserably at that most times,
but I tried.
Q. The way you have explained
command authority and technical authority, did the
CFPM have any command authority over what you were
doing?
A. No, sir, none whatsoever. I
worked directly for commander CEFCOM. Sorry, just
to clarify that point, because it is an important
point, as an advisor to the commander CEFCOM, I
would have rarely been involved even technically
with the Provost Marshal, because I wasn't
conducting investigations.
It wasn't my responsibility to --
you know, to be -- because I didn't have command
authority, to actually conduct investigations or to
order the conduct or to advise on, or to actually
be responsible for the conduct of investigations.
So that is why I didn't routinely deal with the
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Provost Marshal, because it wasn't my job to -- I
was more the conduit to the commander.
Q. I would like to turn to the
topic of military police training.
A. Sir.
Q. And particularly as it
relates to the handling of detainees.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And the first document I
would like to ask you to look at, do you see the
pile of white books there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. If you could go to volume 2?
A. Volume 2. Yes, sir.
Q. Turn to tab 13.
This document has been described
to us as part of the professional training that
non-commissioned members and officers would receive
with respect to training. It is a statement of
principles or a type of syllabus.
And you will see, under the
heading "Officer BMOQ", it says:
"Within EDO 16 principles and
laws of conflict, all
officers are instructed on CF
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responsibilities to PWs and
detainees, rights and
obligations of PWs, PW and
hostage environments." (As
Read)
Was that part of the basic
occupational qualification training all MP officers
receive?
A. Yes, sir, because BMOQ is
basic military officer qualification, I believe, so
in your basic training, even before you went to
Borden to attend the military police officer's
course, there would have been a portion of the
basic officer's course.
Whether you are going to be a
pilot or a military police officer or any officer,
it would have been part of the basic course. And
it really would have been, I -- it would have been
fairly introductory in nature, because not every
officer needs to know, in their day-to-day
function, all about prisoners of war and detainees
and refugees.
Q. Did you receive that as part
of your basic military officer training?
A. Sir, you are asking something
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that happened a long, long time ago. I believe I
did, yes, sir.
Q. Okay. What about training in
the Geneva Convention and International
Humanitarian Law. Is that something --
A. Once again, it would have --
I vaguely remember it. It would have been an
introductory. We would have been introduced to the
Geneva Conventions. We would have been introduced
to the fact that this existed and some of the more
high-level specifics about it and the need to --
how to treat people and -- but it would have been
just basically that.
There would not have been any meat
behind it.
Q. Okay. When you were
appointed as CEFCOM Provost Marshal, was there any
specific training or briefing that you were given
with respect to detainees or the Geneva Convention?
A. No, sir.
Q. Okay. When you took over
from Major Rowcliffe, did he give you any kind of
briefing on detainee issues?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did he raise with you any
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points of concern that he had come across while he
was CEFCOM PM?
A. None whatsoever, sir. Again,
just to understand the circumstances that things
weren't as they were later on. We weren't doing a
lot of that type of operation, like, detainee
operations.
Q. Can I just ask you to
elaborate on that? I think what you seem to be
saying is the tempo when you took over was not
so --
A. Absolutely, sir. It was very
much a peace -- you know, when we first moved on to
Kandahar, it was very much more a peace support
operation. It wasn't until Op Medusa in September
of 2006 that the focus changed.
So it was not unlike when I
first -- when I went into Afghanistan when we were
out in Kabul, it was very much a stability
operation, preparation. When we moved out to
Kandahar, it was very much a stability operation.
The focus changed and, again, numbers may -- I
believe it was the Labour Day weekend in 2006 with
Op Medusa.
Q. Okay. When you took over as
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CEFCOM PM in August 2006, did Major Rowcliffe brief
you on any issues or complaints about notification
to the Red Cross or ISAF about detainees?
A. No, sir. No, sir. None
whatsoever.
Q. Did he raise any issue with
you about the adequacy of follow-up being done on
detainees?
A. No, sir.
Q. While you were at CEFCOM, did
you become aware that in May and June 2006 issues
had been raised about notification of detainees to
the Red Cross?
A. No, sir.
Q. Now, you should have a binder
in front of you, the black binder, which is
Collection E.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. If I could ask you to turn to
tab 1, page 3 of 4? You will see the page numbers
at the bottom right-hand corner.
A. Oh, yes, sir.
Q. And this is an email that Mr.
Colvin sent to a number of addressees at the time
he was at the Provincial Reconstruction Team?
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A. Right.
Q. It was sent May 26th, 2006,
and you can see he is reporting some concerns the
Red Cross has about notification.
Were you ever given a copy of this
email?
A. No, sir.
Q. In the same tab, if I could
ask you to turn to page 2 of 4, in paragraph 6,
with regards to a point of contact. The National
Command Element, NCE, Provost Marshal, Major James
A. Fraser, is the national point of contact on
detainee issues in theatre.
Were you advised that in June 2006
Major Fraser had been named the point of contact on
detainee issues in theatre?
A. No, sir, but it would not
have been unusual for him to do that or to have
that done.
Q. Was he the Task Force Provost
Marshal?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you know if that
designation continued after Major Fraser left? In
other words, was this a duty that, from this point
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on, the Task Force Provost Marshal had?
A. I don't believe it was ever
formalized. I am just trying to think of the TSO,
sir, and I am not -- I don't -- In later
iterations, there was a detainee officer designated
by -- not by name, but it said that a detainee
officer was to be designated.
And, in fact, at that point in
time, later on, it was a command decision for it
not to be an MP, an MP officer.
Again, just for background, if I
could explain, the military police traditionally
did detainees, refugees and the like, because one
of our roles traditionally is that of mobility
operations.
You can think world war, and I am
asking you to think World War II, where we have
great numbers of soldiers trying to move towards
the front, and you have a great number of refugees,
detainees, who are involved in the fight who might
clog up the roads that we're trying to use to send
our people forward.
And so the military police were
given the responsibility, traditionally, to handle,
to be responsible for detainees, refugees,
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displaced persons and the like, anybody that might
adversely affect the mobility forward of the
troops. And this is why the default setting tended
to be to the military police.
The other thing is we often took
this role upon, not only because of the mobility,
but because it allowed the combat soldiers to
continue to carry on with the fight, and we could
get people, that they had just been fighting with,
away from danger and hand them back out and move
them out of danger, get them out of the way, and
then -- it was a sequential and a staged movement
backwards, back to the -- back in the good old
days, back to behind enemy -- sorry, behind the
front lines.
And that's why we, the military
police, have traditionally done detainee
operations. But it is not by -- I don't believe it
to be a -- we don't do it because of our 156, our
police officer powers, in the truest sense of the
word.
Detainee operations is seen as an
operations issue, and so there was really no need,
necessarily, for the OPI, the officer responsible
for detainees, to be a military policeman.
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Q. Within CEFCOM, was there a
member of the staff who was primarily responsible
for detainee issues?
A. No, sir. To the best of my
knowledge and recollection, no, sir. By default
setting, I was it, because the Task Force Provost
Marshal in theatre was -- the default setting was
to the Task Force Provost Marshal.
By default, I became, in essence,
the man with the visibility on detainees, but,
again, I would have been doing it on behalf of the
G3, because it is an operational issue.
Q. That being said, you would
have had no command authority --
A. Absolutely none whatsoever.
Absolutely none whatsoever, no.
Q. Did the CEFCOM commander -- I
appreciate the emails we have looked at were sent
before you arrived, but they raised notification
issues within CEFCOM.
When you arrived in August 2006,
did the commander seek your advice on notification
to the Red Cross?
A. No, sir. No, sir.
Q. If I could ask you, in the
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same book, to turn to tab number 4?
This document is an email that Mr.
Colvin sent in September 2006, when he was at the
embassy in Kabul, relaying problems that ISAF has
expressed with respect to the Canadian approach on
detainee issues and problems in obtaining
information.
I will just give you a second to
read the email.
A. Okay, sir.
Q. And I point out you are not
an addressee on this email.
A. Yes, sir. You are correct,
sir.
Q. But my question is: Did a
copy of this email find its way to you at CEFCOM?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you recall any discussions
between you and the commander or you and the J9
with respect to the contents of this email?
A. No, sir.
Q. Are you aware of the
supplemental agreement that was signed with
Afghanistan on May 3, 2007?
A. Yes, sir.
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Q. Did you have any involvement
in the development of that agreement?
A. Absolutely none, sir.
Q. Were you asked to provide any
advice with respect to the preparation of that
agreement?
A. No, sir.
Q. I would like to turn, now, to
the flow of information within CEFCOM.
A. Sir.
Q. In your position as CEFCOM
PM, would you receive reports on detainees from the
Task Force Provost Marshal?
A. Yes, sir, informally, again,
only by way -- because the flow of information was
so pervasive, hundreds, you know, potentially
thousands of documents a day flowing in, we wanted
to make sure that we -- that in those areas for
which the military police felt responsible, that we
had a back-up plan.
So, once again, detainee reports
and all of this would have gone from the J3 in
theatre to the J3 in CEFCOM. That is their
command, because there is -- that is the command
relationship there.
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And to ensure that we were --
there was a back-up plan, I was often getting a
similar report. So, for example, if we took a
detainee, the report would go from J3 in
Afghanistan to the J3. Major Hudson or Jim Fraser
would also notify me.
So I would then go into the J3 and
say, Did you hear that we had a detainee in our
care? And they would say, Yep, got it, or I would
make sure that in the commander's daily briefing
that I saw, that, yep, up on the status -- because
every day there was a status board, that, yes, it
indicated that a detainee was currently in the
transfer facility.
But it was very much an informal
process. It wasn't a formalized set-in policy or
procedure that he was required to tell me.
Q. Can you tell us, on a routine
basis, what type of information relating to
detainees would be flowing into your office?
A. For the most part, we were
getting -- the TSO had a number of annexes which
dealt with -- TSO-321A, which talked about the
detainee operations, had a number of annexes which
would, amongst other things, set out time lines and
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the like.
And one of the annexes was the --
was, in essence, the report by which we identified,
you know, when the detainee was taken into custody.
I would identify him, get medical care as
necessary, and then when we would turn him over to
Afghan authorities.
I can say the annex, but I would
say it without much -- without much strength of
certainty. I think it was Annex F, was the annex.
And that would be the type of
information that I would get, which was basic
personal information about the person and how we
had -- the transfer process, because sometimes, of
course, the detainees or the -- the detainees would
be taken by somebody in an operation, and then they
would be brought back to KAF, to the Kandahar Air
Field, where the transfer facility occurred. They
would then be transferred to the military police
there.
We would then make sure that the
detainee was seen by the medical people, and the
like, make sure that he was in good shape, and then
would be the holding facility until such time as
the NDS could -- or whoever was called forward and
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we could arrange for transfer.
So sometimes it was very much a
step-back process.
Q. If I could ask you to turn to
volume 1?
A. Sir.
Q. And tab 16?
A. Yes.
Q. At the very end of the tab,
you will see there are -- some of them are big
black pages, but there are some forms there.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would this be the type of
form you are referring to?
A. Absolutely. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
A. And it helped, actually, we
were -- as time went on, we actually got a -- we
worked hard and we got a scanner into theatre so
that we could make this a little bit more
formalized, so --
But, yes, absolutely, this is
exactly the type of thing that we would -- I would
expect to see and we would expect the Provost
Marshal in theatre to keep a copy of, and for the
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J3 in -- the J3 in CEFCOM to have a copy of, as
well.
Q. And apart from --
A. Sorry, I was just flipping
through. Annex H, sir, is one of the -- is
probably the big one, which identified, you know,
the person seized, where, why, and then sort of the
hand-back.
In police parlance, or at least in
military police, in essence, they call it a "live
body receipt", that we are signing for the person,
that he is -- you know, he's fine and that he is
not injured.
Q. Right. Now, in addition to
these reports, were there any reports that came to
you about allegations of abuse of detainees? Let's
look at the period initially between the date of
your arrival and May 3, 2007 when this
supplementary agreement came into effect.
A. No, sir, other than -- the
one that of course made all the press was the
Graeme Smith article and the subsequent articles.
That was the first real indication -- not real
indication -- the first time there was even a hint
that there might be an issue.
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Sorry, let me rephrase that. On
the 15th of December 2007, I received a telephone
call from the public affairs officer at CEFCOM
saying that Mr. -- a reporter for the Globe and
Mail, whose name escapes me --
Q. Mr. Smith?
A. No, not Mr. Smith.
Q. Koring?
A. Koring. Mr. Paul Koring was
asking about, Had the military police conducted any
investigations into abuse of detainees? I
immediately said no, because I hadn't heard any,
but I wanted to make sure that I was right.
So I went to the Task Force
Provost Marshal and I said, Had we ever
investigated an allegation of abuse or maltreatment
of detainees? And they had in fact had one
allegation, and that was actually a hand-over from
one MP group to another MP group. And one MP
group, the fellows that surrendered the detainee
were unhappy with the way the receiving MP group
had taken him into custody.
We had, at that time -- and that
was in March of 2006. March of 2006 we had called
in the NIS. The NIS had investigated and had found
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that there was no mistreatment of the detainees.
It was just a misunderstanding.
And that is what I reported to Mr.
Koring, was that that was the only allegation that
we had received and the only allegation that we had
investigated.
Q. Now, just to clarify, to
confirm the date, you said this discussion with Mr.
Koring was in December of 2007?
A. No, sorry. January 2007.
January 2007. Sorry, sir. I misspoke if I said
December.
The telephone call, 1600, about 4
o'clock on 15th of January was when this all
started.
THE CHAIR: Just to make sure I am
clear, the 15th of December is now 15 --
THE WITNESS: No, 15 January, sir.
I apologize. If I said December, that was my
fault.
THE CHAIR: Of 2007?
THE WITNESS: 2007, yes, sir.
THE CHAIR: Thank you.
BY MR. LUNAU:
Q. If I could ask you to turn to
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the black binder again?
A. Sir.
Q. Turn to tab 43. I will give
you a second to read it.
This is an email that was sent by
Mr. Colvin in June 2006 to a number of addressees,
including a number of addressees within CEFCOM via
the C4 network.
A. All right, sir.
Q. Before readying yourself to
appear as a witness here, had you seen this memo
before?
A. No, sir. No, sir. In fact,
I didn't familiarize myself with Mr. Colvin's
testimony. I have never seen any of these, sir,
because I did not want to have false memory. I
didn't want to know what Mr. -- and I purposely did
not look at Mr. Colvin's reports to see -- which
would have caused me to make false responses to
you, believing that, Oh, I remember that, yes, I
do, when, in fact, I had never seen anything out of
C4.
Q. So today is the first day you
have seen this?
A. Yes, sir.
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Q. Okay. Now, if information
comes into CEFCOM over the C4 network, you do not
have C4 connectivity?
A. No, sir.
Q. So you cannot be an
addressee?
A. That's correct. They can do
what they do, and then we often do that of course
even in the military, is you see -- you know, for
example -- well, on tab 43, at the very --
underneath the security caveat, it says: CEFCOM G3
pass to Powell; J5, pass to Lizotte; J9, pass to
Rebenchuk.
So they could have said, J9 pass
to Provost Marshal, had they thought they wanted to
include me in this circle.
Q. And --
A. But, sorry, sir, to answer
your question, no.
Q. It adds some kind of direct
request in the body of the email that you
described. When information comes into CEFCOM via
the C4, who decides who should see that email or
who might have --
A. If it is not directive, then
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the J9 or even the recipient, so it is actually
broader than I had actually ever known. You know,
the J3 obviously had a C4.
He could say, Hmm, gee, I think
the Provost Marshal, I think the intelligence
officer, I think supply, you know, the logistical
officer, may need to see this.
So unless it is either explicit
they want somebody to see it, or it explicitly
directs that it is not for broader distribution, it
is in essence up to the -- it is a "need to know".
We use the term in the military, "the need to
know". Does the person have the security clearance
to see the information? Yes. Does he have a need
to know the information?
And that can sometimes, even
though he is not in the distribution, it could have
been informally passed to anybody to say, What do
you think about that? What is your advice on this?
Q. The email at tab 43 is
addressed to a number of individuals in CEFCOM, the
commander, the J2, the J3, the J5 and the J9.
A. Sir.
Q. Do you consider that the
CEFCOM Provost Marshal would have a need to know
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information relating to alleged abuse of detainees,
inadequacies of notification to the Red Cross,
those types of issues?
A. Yes and no, sir. The "yes"
answer is, yes, do I believe that we should be
aware of anything on abuse of detainees?
Absolutely. Let me rephrase that.
We should have situational
awareness of that so that we can make a decision as
to whether or not further action needs to be taken.
And, often, this is why I attended meetings was I
had no real dog in the fight, as we would say.
Like, I had no real need, but I needed to have
situational awareness of what was happening in
operations so that I could advise the commander of
this may be a police issue, or this may be a
military police issue, or this is something we can
help, or this is how we can help you, help you,
Commander, do your job.
As it relates to the notification
of ICRC, I clearly did not see that as my role,
sir. That is not the role of the military police.
It wasn't even in TSO-321A.
Our job was primarily to take --
the intake, the processing of the detainee, the
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turning of the information over to the POLAD, or
whoever was responsible for notification of the
ICRC, and then arranging for the transfer to Afghan
authorities. That was our responsibility.
I saw this clearly as a whole of
-- because it was a whole-of-government thing, once
I turned them over to the Afghan authorities,
unless there was a clear allegation, as far as I
was concerned, the military police responsibility
ended.
Q. You referred in one of your
previous answers to the articles by Graeme Smith in
April of 2007. Was that the first information that
came to your attention as Provost Marshal that
there were allegations of abuse of detainees?
Sorry, post transfer?
A. Yes, sir. It was the first
indication that we -- that in fact -- that I became
aware that there might be an issue.
Q. I would like to try to get a
sense of how you perceived the CEFCOM Provost
Marshal position within CEFCOM headquarters. It is
a little difficult to do that without making or
sort of putting a proposition to you and asking you
to comment.
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A. I will try, sir.
Q. Did you feel that the Provost
Marshal within CEFCOM was sort of marginalized?
A. As it related to detainee
operations, yes, sir.
Q. Can you --
A. But, once again, I didn't --
my 'spidey' sense did not tingle as a result of
that. My job, as I saw it, my focus, was to make
sure that Canadian soldiers -- because we were
living under the -- we understood the implications
of detainees. Most of us who were at CEFCOM lived
through the Somalia case.
We understood the implications
associated. So our focus was much more on: Were
soldiers abusing? And there was, you know, at this
point in time very few indications -- no
indications, at that time, that soldiers were
abusing detainees.
Once again, once we turned them
over to Afghan authorities, I saw it no longer as a
military police -- primarily a military police
responsibility, because we had Correctional Service
Canada in-house, in theatre.
Their job, as I saw it, was the
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professionalization of the prison system. They
were, would have been, in my opinion, the oversight
for the prison system.
If they had come back and said,
Yikes, we have a problem, we would have had to then
re-look at this.
THE CHAIR: Who are you saying is
"they"?
THE WITNESS: If Correctional
Service Canada personnel, sir --
THE CHAIR: Okay.
THE WITNESS: -- had said or Were
reporting back -- had reported back that there were
clear allegations or clear indications that there
was abuse or maltreatment of detainees.
But, clearly, because we saw this
-- because I saw this as a whole-of-government
operation, and I -- my military policemen had more
than enough to do to -- in their own -- with their
own responsibilities. We didn't really need to go
looking for work.
BY MR. LUNAU:
Q. Now, we talked a bit about
your own reporting to the Canadian Forces Provost
Marshal.
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A. Sir.
Q. These reports, the reports
that you did receive with respect to detainees,
were they routinely sent on to the --
A. Absolutely not, no, no.
Q. Can you say whether, during
the time you were the CEFCOM PM, all detainee
transfers by Canada were to the National
Directorate of Security in Afghanistan?
A. Not through the totality of
my time there. In fact, initially, Colonel Noonan
in his affidavit indicated that there was -- first
off, even 321A allowed for transfers locally for
minor issues. Initially there was, I think, more
robust transfers to the Afghan National Army,
because, of course, we tended to be doing -- for
the most part, we were doing joint operations with
them. Part of our role, in fact one of our primary
role, is the professionalization of the Afghan
National Army, so we were conducting operations
with them.
As part of that, if a detainee was
taken, the default setting, in fact very clearly
the orders were -- I think the orders were -- that
the Afghan soldiers were to take the detainee, and
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we would then monitor and mentor them on how the
detainee was taken.
If we happened to -- a Canadian
soldier happened to take somebody, it would be
turned over routinely to the Afghan National Army,
who was the Afghan authority. They were the Afghan
authorities. We were there in support of them, as
we saw it.
We would -- we had asked, and it
was in 321A, that notes, as detailed notes as
possible, would be taken to try to identify the
person, remembering that sometimes this was a
shooting operation and we didn't have a lot of time
to sort of sit down and write out notes.
And the other thing, and, again, I
just want to harken back to one of the emails, is
this is a very traditional society, and sometimes
identifying people is tough.
We often would get somebody in and
he would be Mohamed, son of Mohamed, grandson of
Mohamed, you know, and so the actual identification
of people was sometimes difficult. They didn't
have routinely last names or they weren't known by
their last names. They didn't know when they were
-- when they were born, you know.
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So what was your birth date? I
was born the day after, you know, when Ramadan
ended, you know, some time ago. And that -- you
know, so sometimes the note taking wasn't as
judicious as Canadian standards might hope -- you
know, that you would expect of the Canadian
standards.
And it wasn't until later that we
really started to -- So then the post agreement,
then we started to bring -- except for those few
minor -- we brought all detainees back to KAF.
They were processed, and then they were sent back
-- then they were transferred and, for all intents
and purposes, back to the NDS.
Q. If I could come back a minute
to the "need to know".
A. Sir.
Q. We talked a bit about whether
you thought there was a need to know.
Just to follow up on that point,
in this case we have a situation where military
police are carrying out the hand-over or the
transfer of detainees.
Would that fact give rise to a
need to know on the part of the military police, if
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there were allegations that, after the MPs handed
them over to Afghan authorities, there was a risk
of abuse?
A. I wouldn't say -- and please
don't think me obstructionist. If there was a risk
of abuse, there might not be a need to know. If
there were allegations, bona fide allegations, then
that would really clearly be a need to know.
That's a little speculative and I
wasn't there when -- on the ground when the bullets
were flying. So it is a little hard for me to
answer clearly. But if there was just a risk, you
know, that's tough to say.
I mean, policemen turn prisoners
over to the Correctional Service Canada. There is
a risk that they may be mistreated. It doesn't
stop us from turning prisoners over to the
Correctional Service Canada.
Q. But in that scenario you
describe, where the police are being asked to do
something where there is at some level a risk that
is known, do you think the police should be --
A. I would have rather they
informed me, and then I could make a command
decision, a decision as to whether or not I felt it
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warranted further investigation. Not knowing,
though, it is -- you know, it's the Secretary of
Defence. It is stuff we know, stuff we don't know.
It is the stuff we don't know we don't know that is
the most dangerous.
Q. The unknown unknown?
A. Yes, the unknown, unknown,
absolutely, it is the most dangerous. As I say to
people, it is what kept me awake at night is, What
didn't I know that was getting by me? If I knew
it, then I made a decision as to whether or not I
should deal with it. I was good with that. I can
live with my decision.
It was the stuff I didn't know
that bothered me, that I wasn't allowed to put sort
of intellectual rigour on it and decide this is
something I should get -- I should be involved on.
Q. While we're talking about
Donald Rumsfeld, and in the realm of the unknowns,
were there known unknowns to you?
A. Were there known unknowns?
Q. There were things you knew
you didn't know that you should have known?
A. In hindsight, yes, sir.
Absolutely, yes, sir. And, once again, a lot of
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things -- even military people, a lot of
operational operators comment, don't understand
what the military police do. They really don't
understand the depth and breadth of what our
responsibilities are.
And so it's not a malicious
conspiracy. They just don't think to notify us.
That's why I often -- you know, would I go into
meetings not because I had something to offer or
something to do, but I needed the situational
awareness, as we say in the military. I needed the
situational awareness of what was happening so that
I could then provide my advice to the commander,
or, if need be, a directive to the Task Force
Provost Marshal waving my tech directive that says,
I can tell you to do something with a policing
side.
The difficulty, as I said, was I
was a -- one-trick pony is probably the wrong way
to say it, but I was a one-trick pony. I couldn't
get to everything.
Q. I read in one of the
documents, which I can't now put my finger on, but
I recall reference to a board of inquiry being
conducted from April 27 to May 2007 on the detainee
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issue.
A. Sorry. General -- Yes, sir.
Q. Do you have knowledge about
that board of inquiry?
A. No, sir. I was not called to
it. I was required, as I did with the MPCC, to
provide documentation to it, every bit of
documentation I had. Nordick, sir. General
Nordick was the chair.
We had a military police
representative on the board of inquiry.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sherman Hinze was the MP advisor
to the board of inquiry.
So I was just, again, a conduit to
provide documentation to it.
Q. Do you recall what they were
looking into?
A. I don't, sir, and I wasn't
privy to what they were looking into. All I knew
was that it was a detainee -- a board of inquiry on
the subject of detainees.
Q. Okay. Prior to the articles
by Graeme Smith that you referred to, were you
involved in or privy to any discussions within
CEFCOM about post-transfer abuse issues?
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MR. LUNAU: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIR: We will resume at
quarter to 11:00.
--- Recess at 10:28 a.m.
--- Upon resuming at 10:46 a.m.
THE CHAIR: Thank you.
MR. BERLINQUETTE: Thank you.
BY MR. LUNAU:
Q. Colonel Boot, we talked a bit
before the break about May 3, 2007 supplementary
agreement.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And that agreement called for
monitoring of detainees who had been transferred to
be done by the Department of Foreign Affairs?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. As CEFCOM Provost Marshal,
did you consider that the military police had an
interest in that monitoring?
A. No, sir.
Q. Okay. Would you have seen it
as within the MPs' area of responsibility to
receive reports on the results of the monitoring?
A. I would have assumed that,
and I would have expected to be briefed, had they
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found anything untoward, but that would be about
the extent of it. You know, there's a saying in
the military, NATO, "silence procedures would
apply."
In other words, in the absence of
hearing anything, I assume everything is -- you
know, we assume that everything is going along
swimmingly.
Q. And in the period of time you
were there, and I appreciate you left in July
2007 --
A. Yes, sir.
Q. -- did you receive any
reports of the results of site visits?
A. No, sir.
Q. Just before the May 3
agreement, transfers were stopped for a period of
time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were you aware of that
decision?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were you aware of the reasons
for it?
A. I wasn't made aware of the
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reasons for it, sir. I was able to deduce the
reasons for it.
Q. What did you understand the
reasons to be?
A. Until we -- because there was
some indication that the current, the existing, the
original agreement wasn't as robust as was expected
or as was hoped, this led us to have to redo the
agreement. And until we got the new agreement into
place, we stopped handing over detainees, because
we wanted to make sure that all of our procedures
were in place.
And we had to, of course, revise
some of our procedures, internal procedures, as
well.
Q. Are you able to tell the
Commission when, after May 3, 2007, those transfers
resumed?
A. I don't know the date, sir.
Q. Do you know the rough time
frame?
A. I don't, sir.
Q. Okay. If I could just refer
back to the Graeme Smith articles in April 2007?
A. Yes, sir.
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Q. When those articles came out,
were you tasked to make any kind of enquiries or to
take any actions in response to those articles?
A. The only thing we did was to
-- This relates to the thing --
MS. RICHARDS: Are you concerned
about sensitive information?
THE WITNESS: No, no. What we
discussed about just prior to --
MS. RICHARDS: Yes.
THE WITNESS: Am I allowed to --
MS. RICHARDS: Yes. There is
nothing sensitive in that.
THE WITNESS: We were --
THE CHAIR: When you say "we", who
are you referring to as "we"?
THE WITNESS: Oh, sorry. Counsel
and I just had a chat.
BY MR. LUNAU:
Q. You said "we were tasked"?
A. Sorry, I apologize. We, sort
of the G3 and Provost Marshal, the G3 organization,
the Provost Marshal, were tasked to confirm whether
or not the people who were making allegations or
were the subject of the reports, Mr. Smith's
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reports, had they actually been in our custody at
any point in time.
So it was a question of, Were we
-- did we ever have them in our custody?
So there was -- Mr. Smith, I think
his article addressed, related to, a dozen or 20
people. And we were told to go back and find out
who of these did we -- had gone through our
transfer facility.
Q. And were you able to confirm
whether any of those --
A. We were able to confirm some
of them were. I don't believe all of them were --
had been at the detention or at the transfer
facility, but I know some of them had.
Q. When you had confirmed that
some of the detainees in Mr. Smith's article had
gone through the CF facility, are you aware of any
further investigations being done to determine if
the reports of abuse were correct?
A. No, sir.
Q. Was Major Hudson one of the
Task Force Provost Marshals during your tenure?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he ever have any
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discussions with you where he raised concerns that,
under the Geneva Convention, the CF might be
responsible for detainees after they had been
transferred?
A. Nothing that related
specifically to this issue, sir. Part of
professional development, you know, and we always
talk about the treatment and handling of detainees,
and we were very, very conscious of it, of course,
as I said. But, again, our focus was more on the
pre-transfer handling of the detainees, because we
were, again, living under the -- you know, with the
Damocles sword of Somalia always hanging over our
head and understanding the implications if there
was ever any indications that the CF was
responsible for -- for mistreatment.
Q. And just so people here are
aware, the Somalian inquiry involved a case of
abuse of an individual while he was in the custody
of the CF?
A. Yes, sir, and ultimately the
death of that Somalian.
Q. Right. Now, I would like to
just ask you a few questions based on your lengthy
experience as a military police officer.
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A. Sir.
Q. And they have to do,
generally, with the duty of military police to
investigate offences or allegations of offences.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When, in your view, would a
member of the military police have a duty to self
initiate an investigation?
A. If there was -- and, again,
it is tough to speculate, in the sense that you
take almost each case on its own merits.
In my opinion, if there is
credible -- if the source or there is credible
allegations, I guess, that an offence had occurred
or the person making the allegations was a credible
source or had a vested interest in making the
allegation. Is that enough detail, sir?
I mean, I would literally have to
understand the circumstances surrounding the
situation before I would make that determination.
Q. Okay. To put a specific fact
situation forward and ask for your comments on it,
we talked about the Graeme Smith article --
A. Sir.
Q. -- and the enquiries which
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disclosed that or confirmed that some of the names
listed in Mr. Smith's article had, at one time,
been in CF custody.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would that be information
that would be sufficient to cause the military
police to self-initiate an investigation?
A. I wouldn't have thought so,
sir, no.
Q. In your position as CEFCOM
PM, did you at any time during your tenure obtain
information that you considered would have
justified an investigation into the transfer of
detainees?
A. No, sir.
Q. Those are all of my
questions. Thank you very much, Colonel Boot.
A. Sir, thank you very much.
THE CHAIR: Ms. Pastine.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS. PASTINE:
Q. Thank you.
Lieutenant-Colonel, my name is
Grace Pastine. I represent the BC Civil Liberties
Association and Amnesty International.
I wanted to start off by asking
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you a few questions about the role of the military
police in regards to detainees. You already spoke
about this a bit briefly, and I will try not to ask
the same questions that Commission counsel has
already asked.
Now, you -- in response to some
Commission counsel's questions, you stated that
traditionally the military police have had an
important responsibility for detainees?
A. Right, yes.
Q. And that central to that
responsibility is the notion of keeping detainees
safe and out of danger?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, I understand there is a
document called military police doctrine. Are you
familiar with that document?
A. There is a document called
military police in battle. And, yes, I am aware of
it, yes.
THE CHAIR: Is that the same
document, the military police in battle, as the
military police doctrine?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. For all
intents and purposes, yes.
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8/9/2019 Hearing Transcript - April 15 2010 - FULL DAY
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THE CHAIR: Just the name?
THE WITNESS: "Doctrine" is just
an overarching philosophy of how the military
police are employed, and the military police in
battle is, in essence, a little bit more detailed
on -- puts a little meat to the skeleton of
doctrine.
THE CHAIR: Thank you.
BY MS. PASTINE:
Q. So you already partially
answered this, so could you give the Commission a
general sense of what military police in battle,
what that document covers, just generally speaking?
A. It really does give -- it is
a lit