Afghan intel service: No torture at our prisons

[March 20, 2012]  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan's intelligence service has rejected findings by international and Afghan rights groups of torture at some of its prisons.

The repudiation was the latest salvo in a dispute about conditions at Afghan prisons that has been raging since the U.N. first documented torture last year. NATO and U.S. forces stopped transferring detainees to 16 facilities because of those findings.

A report issued Saturday by the Open Society Institute and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said it found evidence of ongoing abuse at one of the 16 facilities -- an intelligence service prison in Kandahar -- as well as other prisons.

The National Directorate of Security said Tuesday that the allegations came from second-hand reports and were untrue.

[Associated Press; By HEIDI VOGT]

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