PM: Our troops don't torture

John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Prime Minister has rejected suggestions that New Zealand's Special Air Service was responsible for the torture of prisoners in the Afghan National Directorate of Security.

The British military has been banned from handing prisoners to the directorate because of its notorious reputation.

The Government has said the SAS worked with Afghanistan's Crisis Response Unit in Kabul, but was not directly responsible for any prisoners captured by the unit because it was not the head of the unit.

John Key said the SAS was not involved in the torture of prisoners.

If they detained someone, clear written protocols honouring the Geneva Convention how that was done.

The Geneva Convention sets out the standards for the humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war.

Mr Key said when New Zealand troops handed over someone they had detained, they made sure that person would not be tortured.

Where the New Zealand SAS worked alongside the unit in Kabul it was not the detaining force, Mr Key told NewstalkZB.

"In that instance, it's not our responsibility when it comes to those people that are detained."

But the SAS recorded the name of every person detained by the unit, and those names were freely available to international agencies, he said.

Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said the SAS worked with the unit to capture insurgents.

It was likely some were transferred to the Afghan National Directorate of Security, he told the Sunday Star-Times.

He was understood to be looking into the situation.

Green Party MP Keith Locke said the New Zealand Defence Force had to share responsibility for what happened to insurgents it captured.

"We don't want New Zealand's good name muddied by links to the torture of prisoners."

- NZPA