New Zealand SAS investigated over handling of Afghan prisoners
New Zealand SAS involved in torture in Afghanistan
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New Zealand's government will soon release findings of reports and legal advice regarding allegations that the New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) were responsible for sending prisoners to the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS). According to Amnesty International;
[T]he NDS, has demonstrated a persistent pattern of human rights violations perpetrated with impunity. Dozens of NDS detainees, some arrested arbitrarily and detained incommunicado without access to defence lawyers, families, courts or other outside bodies, have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including being whipped, exposed to extreme cold and deprived of food,
So notorious is the NDS that the British military have been banned from handing over prisoners to them. The detainees in question were allegedly captured during joint operations between the NZSAS and Afghanistan’s Crisis Response Unit. According to the New Zealand Herald, Defence Minister Wayne Mapp has said previously it was likely some prisoners were transferred to the NDS facilities and Prime Minister John Key said it was the "place of choice actually for ISAF (International Security Assistance Forces) to send detainees because of its reputation".
This is not the first time the SAS have been the subject of torture accusations. International legal experts have accused New Zealand of breaking the Geneva Convention between 2002 and 2009 when 50-70 prisoners were handed over to Americans forces at the Kandahar detention centre in southern Afghanistan. The centre was known by US soldiers as "Camp Slappy", and prisoners there have described being severely beaten and tortured, drenched with water and left to freeze outside in winter. Unsurprisingly, the latest allegations have led to renewed calls for the SAS to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Earlier this month New Zealand suffered its first casualty in the nearly decade long war.
