The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan has suspended the transfer of detainees to several prisons following allegations of torture, the BBC reports.
As British troops prepared to hand over parts of Helmand province to Afghan control, claims emerged that in some Afghan prisons detainees have been mistreated and even tortured. A number of those prisoners were handed over by international troops.
The BBC cites an as-yet unpublished UN report that describes how some prisoners were "beaten with rubber hoses, threatened with sexual assault… others were given electric shocks."
It says the torture has become "common-place and systematic" in some prisons in Afghanistan.
ISAF, or the International Security Assistance Force, has suspended transfers in some areas
The BBC quotes an unnamed NATO official: "With appropriate caution, ISAF 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."
ISAF also suspended transfers to two prisons run by the Afghan police in Kunduz and Tarin Kowt.
