Inmates walk in the prison yard at a jail in Kabul. Former diplomat Richard Colvin alleges that prisoners were handed over to Afghanistan officials by the Canadian military in 2006-07, despite his warnings to the Canadian government that they would be tortured. (David Guttenfelder/Associated Press)

A Corrections Canada official who worked as a co-ordinator for prison reform in Afghanistan for two years says she never saw any physical signs that detainees had been abused or tortured.

Linda Garwood-Filbert told a special House of Commons committee investigating Afghan detainee transfers that she visited two prisons and the Afghan National Police headquarters 47 times in 2007.

The visits included 26 interviews of detainees conducted by Corrections Canada, she said Wednesday.

Corrections official Linda Garwood-Filbert testifies Wednesday before a special House of Commons committee investigating Afghan detainee transfers. (CBC)

Garwood-Filbert said she would try to substantiate claims of abuse from inmates who recounted what they were told or heard or what had happened to them personally.

“Although I took care to look for them, there were no physical signs of abuse to validate their statements,” Garwood-Filbert said.

“In all my visits and interviews with these inmates, I personally never saw any signs of physical abuse or torture. All detainees who knew they were captured by the Canadian Forces spoke well of their treatment by them, including receiving medical care when needed."

Garwood-Filbert's testimony follows allegations made by Richard Colvin, a former senior diplomat with Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Colvin alleged that prisoners were turned over to Afghanistan prison officials by the Canadian military in 2006-07, despite his warnings to the Canadian government that they would be tortured.

Although she did not see physical signs of abuse, Garwood-Filbert said that in April 2007, she reported two prisoner allegations of mistreatment to the International Red Cross.

Another six detainees claimed they had been beaten, including two who said they had been abused by the Afghan National Police, she said.

Garwood-Filbert also noted that in November 2007, comments were made about a piece of an electrical cable found in the office of a security director of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security. The director was subsequently removed.

She said she also expressed concerns about the use of chains, housing child detainees with adults, depriving inmates of fresh air and, in one case, light, and other practices. These concerns were reported to the warden, correctional services and Foreign Affairs, she said.

41 documents released

Colleen Swords, a former assistant deputy minister at Foreign Affairs, also tesitfied at the committee hearing, denying Colvin's allegations she had told him to stop writing things down.

Instead, she said, she told him Ottawa was responding to his concerns.

Meanwhile, 41 reports written by Colvin during his time in Afghanistan were made public on Wednesday, but most were heavily censored.

The reports were sent from Kandahar and Kabul in 2006 and 2007, and most dealt with the treatment of Afghan detainees.

The documents are so heavily redacted by government censors, it's difficult to know what Covin was actually reporting or what his bosses in Ottawa thought of those reports.