Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan is being accused of falsely downplaying his role in Afghanistan in an attempt to thwart an investigation by the ethics commissioner, just days after he publicly apologized for falsely embellishing his role.
Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson questioned Sajjan regarding why he refused to open an investigation into the torture of Afghan detainees transferred by Canadian soldiers. Sajjan served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan at the time and, were such an investigation to take place, he could potentially be called as a witness.
Conversations with the ethics commissioner typically remain private, but in a Feb. 27 letter obtained by the National Post, Dawson summarizes her conversation with the defence minister: “Mr. Sajjan informed me that he was deployed as a reservist to Afghanistan where he was responsible for capacity building with local police forces. At no time was he involved in the transfer of Afghan detainees, nor did he have any knowledge relating to the matter,” she wrote.
In public, Sajjan has described his time in Afghanistan in significantly different terms. He told military historian Sean Maloney he was involved in intelligence gathering and worked regularly with the the governor of Kandahar and the head of the National Directorate of Security, both of whom have been accused of organizing the torture of suspected Taliban fighters in violation of international law. In a 2006 letter Sajjan’s commanding officer in Afghanistan, brigadier general David Fraser, described him as an intelligence officer who “singlehandedly changed the face of intelligence gathering and analysis in Afghanistan.”
After questioning Sajjan, Dawson decided there was insufficient evidence and closed her investigation ...
