A senior Canadian military officer who helped manage the early days of Canada's combat mission in Kandahar has admitted torture likely occurred in Afghanistan prisons, but says reports of abuse were overblown.

Maj.-Gen. Mike Ward, above in Kandahar, Afghanistan in January, told the Military Police Complaints Commission on Thursday that it was beyond Canada's responsibility in 2006 to monitor the treatment of detainees in Afghan custody. (Steve Rennie/Canadian Press)Maj.-Gen. Mike Ward told the Military Police Complaints Commission in Ottawa on Thursday that he didn't think the Canadian military had a responsibility for detainees it captured after they were passed to Afghan authorities.

Ward was a senior staff officer at the Canadian military headquarters responsible for Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006.

During his testimony, he said whatever happened to Canadian-caught detainees after they were transferred to Afghan authorities in those years was beyond the military's limited legal responsibility.

"It was ensuring that while those detainees were in our custody, nothing untoward happened to them," he said of Canada's role.

Even though the Canadian government has since negotiated a new transfer agreement with Afghanistan that allows Canadian officials to monitor detainees, Ward said Canada still doesn't have to do it.

"I'm not sure that there's an explicit — not that I've seen — an explicit acknowledgment by the Government of Canada that we are responsible for post-transfer," he told the commission.

Human rights law suggests Canada has a responsibility not to transfer detainees if they face a serious risk of torture, let alone if torture is an established fact.

The Military Police Complaints Commission, a civilian-run watchdog, is examining the issue in hearings that resumed on Thursday after a summer recess.

Ward also described the Afghan National Directorate of Security, the spy service known as the NDS, as a "highly thought of organization," despite widespread reports of torture.

"If you had to deal with an agency of government, the NDS was the best step at that point of time," he said.

Cells 'not torture chambers per se'

Ward also said international human rights agencies' reports of torture and abuse in Afghan prisons weren't useful.

"They don't help very much because you create an expectation of a climate of torture or terror in Afghan prisons that is actually not accurate," he said. "These are not torture chambers per se."

Amnesty International lawyer Paul Champ called Ward's statement ridiculous.

Even if Canadian military officials refused to recognize international reports that warned torture was going to be a problem in Afghan jails, they couldn't ignore reports from Canadian officials in 2007, said Champ, who is representing the human rights group in the commission's hearings.

"I'm not sure if he has some medieval idea that you've got, you know, the rack and spikes on the wall and stuff like that," Champ said.

The Canadian government was forced to temporarily suspend its detainee transfers in 2007 after evidence emerged that a prisoner transferred into Afghan custody had been beaten unconscious with an electrical cable and a hose.

To date, it is the only incident of abuse the Canadian government has admitted to be true.