A senior Canadian diplomat has lambasted the military for its “link” in the “torture” of Afghan civilians and its “cleanup act” meant to silence critics.

Richard Colvin, former Canadian representative in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and the country's previous number two at its Kabul embassy, reprimanded military commanders on the ground for committing “groups of innocent” farmers and peasants to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) for “harsh” interrogations on suspicion of their involvement with Taliban militants.

Speaking before a House of Commons committee on Wednesday, Colvin gave evidence of the Canadian troops' “deliberate” handover of detainees in the knowledge of their abuse by Afghan interrogators, disregarding their civilian status.

"According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured," said Colvin.

"In other words, we detained, and handed over for severe torture a lot of innocent people," added the former official who primarily informed the Canadian government of the Afghan persecutions in 2006.

"For a year and a half after they knew about the very high risk of torture, they continued to order military police in the field to hand our detainees to the NDS," noted the diplomat.

"As I learned more about our detainee practices, I came to the conclusion that they were ... un-Canadian, counterproductive, and probably illegal," he went on to say.

Colvin lashed out at military officials for exercising detainee abuse covered in "extreme secrecy" and accused the government of collaboration with the armed forces in the “torture” episode.

"By April 2007, we were receiving written messages from the senior Canadian government coordinator for Afghanistan to the effect that we should be quiet and do what we were told," he testified.

The arrests were made from "random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time," Reuters quoted him as saying.

"We detained and handed over for severe torture a lot of innocent people ... Complicity in torture is a war crime," he concluded.

Colvin's torture allegations are seen as a blow to the Canadian government's efforts in Afghanistan as the country's 2,700 soldiers south of the war-torn country were meant to transfer "high-level targets" or Taliban paramilitaries to the ruling authorities.

The latest historic anti-government charges by a former diplomat are set to cause further controversies in the country as opposition to Canada's involvement in the Afghan war has already outdone support for the conflict.

GHN/AKM