New Zealand’s Defence Force has always denied its troops were complicit in torture in Afghanistan. But a Taliban leader’s account of mistreatment suggests serious breaches of our international obligations. JON STEPHENSON reports.

A Taliban commander wanted “dead or alive” by New Zealand forces has described how he was assaulted by SAS troopers after his capture and transferred to the Afghan secret police where he was beaten, subjected to sleep deprivation, and given electric shocks.

Qari Miraj was targeted by the SAS for his role in the 3 August 2010 attack on a New Zealand provincial reconstruction team convoy in Bamiyan province that killed Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell and wounded several others - an attack he admits involvement in.

At the request of the New Zealand Defence Force, Miraj and other insurgents were placed on America’s Joint Prioritized Effects List, which authorised our SAS troopers to catch the insurgents or kill them on sight.

The conduct of the operation - which was intended to catch or kill Taliban commanders involved in O’Donnell’s death - has been the subject of a long-running official inquiry, which is expected to report back soon.

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Miraj escaped during the raid but was captured in a joint SAS-Afghan operation at a mosque in Kabul around 3am on 16 January 2011. He said that after he was detained inside the mosque by Afghan forces he was taken outside and handed to the SAS.

“They put a black blindfold on my head to cover my face, and [the SAS] mistreated me by punching me and kicking my legs,” Miraj said. He told Stuff he was lightly-dressed. “It was winter, and they stood me in the snow.”

Miraj’s account is broadly confirmed by two personnel who witnessed the assault. They said one SAS trooper was primarily responsible. Stuff has also spoken to a third unit member present during the operation who was told of the assault shortly after it occurred.

One eyewitness said he was “shocked and disappointed” at the beating of a hooded, flexi-cuffed detainee. He said several other troopers witnessed the assault on Miraj and it was widely discussed later among members of the SAS team stationed in Kabul.

Two former SAS personnel have told Stuff that Miraj was probably assaulted because some Defence Force personnel believed he had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at O’Donnell’s vehicle after it was disabled by an explosive.

Miraj estimates he was in SAS custody for about 90 minutes before the New Zealanders delivered him to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the much-feared Afghan secret police.

Miraj said the NDS officers subjected him to sleep deprivation “for days and nights.” He said he was kept handcuffed at all times, except when he was allowed to eat or to pray.

He said he was kept in freezing conditions at the NDS detention centre during winter – “this is another kind of torture” – and that NDS officers beat him severely on multiple occasions. He also described being subjected to electric shocks in interrogation sessions.

“They were connecting electrodes to the toes of my feet and then turning on the power, and I was going to the sky and coming to the ground until I became very weak and no longer understood what was going on. Then they would stop.”

NDS officers’ record of mistreating and torturing detainees has been extensively documented by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

An October 2011 UN report covering the period Miraj was in NDS custody detailed significant incidents of torture. Lieutenant General Rhys Jones, who was Defence Force chief at the time, said then that the report was “well researched and credible” but insisted the Defence Force was not complicit in the mistreatment or torture of detainees.

It is a serious breach of domestic and international law to mistreat or torture detainees. It is also illegal to transfer detainees to another country or organisation that is likely to mistreat or torture them.

The Defence Force has consistently maintained that the SAS unit stationed in Kabul from 2009-2012 only detained one person, and that that insurgent was not transferred to the NDS. It has repeatedly stated that it is not aware of evidence that anyone captured on joint SAS-Afghan operations was subsequently mistreated or tortured.

However, previously secret Defence Force and New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) documents released by the Operation Burnham Inquiry make it clear that Defence Force and SIS personnel were aware of information that Miraj had been tortured. One of those personnel has confirmed to Stuff that the SAS unit in Kabul knew there was substance to the claims.

Miraj has told Stuff, New Zealand and Afghan NDS personnel were “working jointly” during the period he was tortured. He said on one occasion four New Zealand personnel – two of them with weapons – came to his cell with NDS officers and took him to another room to question him. Two of the New Zealanders were carrying intelligence reports about him.

He believed New Zealanders and the NDS were sharing reports.

Miraj said no New Zealand personnel were present when he was being tortured. However, he said it was “a hundred per cent” clear from questions he was asked under interrogation by the NDS that questions had been given to them by New Zealanders.

Asked if he believed that New Zealand personnel were using NDS interrogators to extract information from him that could be used in the hunt for other insurgents involved in the attack on the PRT convoy, Miraj said: “Exactly, exactly.”

Miraj confirmed to Stuff he participated in the attack that killed O’Donnell and injured other PRT soldiers. “I was the main leader of the operation – for example, deciding who had what weapons and who was positioned where.” However, he denied firing a rocket-propelled grenade at O’Donnell’s vehicle.

“The NDS wanted to get proof, to get a confession from me by force for things I hadn’t done; they wanted me to confess to more than I had done. That’s why they were torturing me.

“When I was caught [the NDS interrogators] were asking about operations that I did, and I accepted that, yes, I did this operation and, yes, I did that operation,” Miraj said. “But when they were trying to get me to confess to things that I hadn’t done….I was saying ‘no’ and then they were torturing me.

Human rights organisations have frequently reported that the NDS uses torture to obtain confessions. Many detainees have said their interrogators stopped torturing them once they confessed to crimes, including crimes they had not committed.

Miraj’s experience appears to fit this pattern. His treatment began to improve after he signed a confession under duress. A previously secret document released by the Operation Burnham Inquiry shows that 10 days after Miraj’s transfer to the NDS, a NDS officer met a SIS officer in Kabul and gave them a copy of that “confession”.

Miraj’s confession was then forwarded to Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan and to Defence Force and SIS personnel in New Zealand. A SIS email dated 31 January 2011 lists other recipients as including the chief executive of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the GCSB director, the chief executives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence, and the Police Commissioner.

However, the allegation that Miraj had been tortured does not appear to have been passed to the Government. Dr Wayne Mapp, the defence minister at the time, said he was briefed about Miraj’s confession but was unaware the SAS had handed him to the NDS and had not been given any information to suggest Miraj had been tortured.

“I had read many international human rights reports and I was well aware of compelling evidence that torture was happening in NDS detention facilities,” Mapp said. He had been constantly assured by the Defence Force that the SAS was not handing detainees to the NDS.

“I would have been deeply concerned if our forces were directly handing detainees to those facilities,” said Mapp. “If it turns out that this did happen it’s a very good argument for having an independent inspector-general to monitor Defence Force operations.”

Miraj said he was moved to Kabul’s Pul-e-Charkhi prison after 10 months in NDS custody. He spent almost two-and-a-half years at Pul-e-Charkhi before being relocated to Kilegay prison in his home province of Baghlan.

According to multiple sources, after Miraj had spent three months at Kilegay the Taliban secured his temporary release for medical treatment by bribing a senior official. Miraj absconded and rejoined his insurgent group.

Today he is regarded as one of the most effective insurgent leaders in eastern Afghanistan. Baghlan government officials as well as police and intelligence sources have told Stuff that Miraj emerged from prison more determined and dangerous than he was before he was captured.

Bahawuddin, one of Miraj’s brothers, and a member of his insurgent group, described his brother’s treatment by the NDS as brutal. “They didn’t feed him well, they beat him, they tortured him with electricity, and he still has psychological problems as a result.”

Miraj agreed that his interrogators’ behaviour was brutal but claimed he was used to such treatment and was “not upset” that he was tortured.

“It was not my loss but to my advantage,” he said. “I will receive a reward from Allah in paradise.”

• The Defence Force declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing Operation Burnham Inquiry.