Kabul, Sept 7(ANI): The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan has suspended the transfer of detainees to several Afghan jails following allegations of torture.
The accusations come in an as-yet unpublished UN report, which describes how prisoners were beaten and in some cases given electric shocks, the BBC reports.
A NATO official said that it was a "prudent" measure until the allegations could be investigated.
"With appropriate caution, ISAF [International Security and Assistance Force] has taken the prudent measure to suspend detainee transfer to certain facilities until we can verify the observations of a pending Unama [UN Mission in Afghanistan] report," the NATO official told the channel.
The facilities that are involved are prisons run by the Afghan National Department of Security (NDS) in Herat, Khost, Lagman, Kapisa and Takhar as well as the NDS' Counter-Terrorism prison, known as Department 124, the channel said.
It said it has learned that the UN report describes the torture as commonplace and systematic.
Prisoners, some of whom had been handed over by NATO troops, were beaten with rubber hoses and threatened with sexual assault, the channel said, adding that most of those held were suspected of being insurgents and some were held without charge.
The UN mission in the country said that it had already shared the report's findings with the Afghan government.
"We understand they are taking the findings very seriously and are proposing a series of remedial actions," the mission's spokesperson, Dan McNorton, was quoted as saying.
"Our findings indicate that the mistreatment of detainees is not an institutional or government policy of the government of Afghanistan," McNorton added. (ANI)
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