Australia — Mission overview about Afghanistan

Dur­ing my vis­it to Uruz­gan I again vis­it­ed Australia’s pur­pose-built screen­ing facil­i­ty at Multi­na­tion­al Base-Tarin Kot where detainees cap­tured by Aus­tralian forces are held for a lim­it­ed time for screening. 

Again an oppor­tu­ni­ty was giv­en to show rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Aus­tralian media this facil­i­ty, reflect­ing Australia’s com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy with respect to these matters. 

The facil­i­ty is struc­tured to ensure the humane treat­ment of detainees, con­sis­tent with Aus­tralian val­ues and our domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al legal obligations. 

Detainees are able to freely prac­tice their reli­gion, and are pro­vid­ed access to exer­cise, ade­quate food and water, suit­able sleep­ing arrange­ments and oth­er amenities. 

The facil­i­ty is also open to reg­u­lar inspec­tion by the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross. The first such inspec­tion took place in Octo­ber 2010, with anoth­er tak­ing place in March this year. 

Once ini­tial screen­ing is com­plete, detainees are trans­ferred either to Afghan or Unit­ed States cus­tody, or released if there is insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to jus­ti­fy ongo­ing detention. 

In the peri­od 1 August 2010 to 8 May 2011, Aus­tralia appre­hend­ed 590 detainees. Of these, 81 have been trans­ferred to Afghan author­i­ties and 40 to US author­i­ties. The remain­der have been released fol­low­ing ini­tial screening. 

Since 1 August 2010, 15 alle­ga­tions of mis­treat­ment from 13 detainees have been made against the ADF. Thir­teen of these alle­ga­tions have been thor­ough­ly inves­ti­gat­ed. They were found to have had no sub­stance and were dismissed. 

Two more recent alle­ga­tions remain under review. 

These alle­ga­tions and the out­come of the com­pre­hen­sive inves­ti­ga­tions are report­ed in full to the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force (ISAF) and appro­pri­ate human­i­tar­i­an organisations. 

Over the same peri­od, from 1 August 2010 to 8 May 2011, I am advised the ADF have cap­tured five peo­ple who were sub­se­quent­ly released, then recap­tured. Four of the indi­vid­u­als in ques­tion were released as there was insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to war­rant their con­tin­ued detention. 

In the case of the fifth indi­vid­ual, the sec­ond time he was appre­hend­ed there was suf­fi­cient evi­dence to pro­vide a con­clu­sive link to the insur­gency. In accor­dance with Australia’s detainee man­age­ment frame­work, he was trans­ferred to the Deten­tion Facil­i­ty in Parwan. 

In my March report I updat­ed the House on a num­ber of relat­ed detainee matters. 

I can advise that the Aus­tralian Defence Force Inves­tiga­tive Ser­vice (ADFIS) inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions of non-com­pli­ance with the man­age­ment and admin­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures for the pro­cess­ing of detainees at the ADF detainee screen­ing facil­i­ty is ongoing. 

The CCTV sys­tem at the Ini­tial Screen­ing Sys­tem is func­tion­ing and con­tin­u­ous footage is being record­ed and archived. 

Our detainee man­age­ment approach to the man­age­ment and treat­ment of juve­niles has been updat­ed to ensure there is clear guid­ance on the man­age­ment of juve­niles appre­hend­ed dur­ing the course of ADF operations. 

The Gov­ern­ment cur­rent­ly has three detainee man­age­ment issues under con­sid­er­a­tion and I expect to make an announce­ment on them in due course. 

The first issue is the appro­pri­ate­ness of the length of deten­tion in the Aus­tralian Ini­tial Screen­ing Area to enable the pos­si­ble col­lec­tion of fur­ther infor­ma­tion by Australia. 

The sec­ond issue con­cerns con­tin­gency arrange­ments for the man­age­ment of detainees cap­tured out­side of Uruz­gan, for exam­ple Kandahar. 

The third issue regards the cur­rent require­ment for an ini­tial detainee mon­i­tor­ing vis­it to occur with­in 72 hours after a detainee is trans­ferred from the Aus­tralian Ini­tial Screen­ing Area to US or Afghan custody. 

I will con­tin­ue to pro­vide reg­u­lar pub­lic updates, includ­ing to the Par­lia­ment, on these detainee man­age­ment issues. 

Afghan Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Forces issue

Not only is Aus­tralia com­mit­ted to hold­ing our own per­son­nel to the high­est stan­dards on detainee man­age­ment, but if ADF per­son­nel become aware of con­cerns regard­ing the treat­ment of detainees by our ISAF or Afghan part­ners, Aus­tralia also treats this with the utmost seriousness. 

In March, I advised that in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary Aus­tralian sol­diers wit­nessed an inci­dent that occurred dur­ing an Afghan deten­tion oper­a­tion in Uruz­gan Province. We raised the mat­ter with the Afghan Gov­ern­ment and ISAF and asked that the mat­ter be ful­ly inves­ti­gat­ed. I have been advised sub­se­quent­ly that the mat­ter has been investigated. 

On 1 April, Aus­tralian sol­diers wit­nessed a fur­ther Afghan deten­tion inci­dent in Uruz­gan province. That inci­dent has also been raised with the Afghan Gov­ern­ment and through the ISAF chain of com­mand and I have been advised that the mat­ter is being investigated. 

As well, I have dis­cussed detainee man­age­ment issues with my Afghan coun­ter­parts the Min­is­ter for Defence and the Min­is­ter for Interior. 

They both acknowl­edge and under­stand ful­ly the need to ensure the con­tin­ued cred­i­bil­i­ty and high regard of the Afghan Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Forces and that this includes inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of detainee abuse or mis­treat­ment when and where they may arise. 

Sar­poza Prison Break

Assess­ment of the secu­ri­ty impact of the 25 April Sar­poza prison break continues. 

Pri­or to the break out, the Sar­poza prison housed a total of 1298 inmates, com­prised of 730 inmates in the gen­er­al prison pop­u­la­tion and 568 inmates in the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Hold­ing Unit. 

In the ear­ly morn­ing of 25 April, 488 of the 568 pris­on­ers held in the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Hold­ing Unit escaped. Of the escapees, 475 were con­vict­ed insur­gents and 13 were sus­pect­ed insur­gents await­ing trial. 

The ADF’s ini­tial assess­ment of the escapees indi­cates that none of the escapees were detainees that had been cap­tured by ADF forces. 

Fol­low­ing a review of avail­able records, the ADF has iden­ti­fied that four detainees appre­hend­ed by the ADF pri­or to 1 August 2010 were report­ed to have been sent to Sar­poza Prison on 30 Octo­ber 2010. Based on the avail­able infor­ma­tion, the ADF has con­clud­ed that these ADF appre­hend­ed detainees were not among the pris­on­ers that escaped. 

Records show that since 1 August 2010, one detainee appre­hend­ed by the ADF was sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred from the Afghan Nation­al Direc­torate of Secu­ri­ty in Uruz­gan to Sar­poza Prison on 30 Octo­ber 2010. The detainee was sub­se­quent­ly released. 

The num­ber of escapees with ties to Uruz­gan remains unclear, but ini­tial indi­ca­tions are that the vast major­i­ty of escapees were relat­ed to Kan­da­har and not Uruz­gan province. As such, I am advised that the direct secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions for Uruz­gan are like­ly to be min­i­mal if any.