OTTAWA, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Canada will investigate whether its soldiers abused three local men after taking them prisoner last April near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials said on Tuesday. Earlier in the day an Ottawa University law professor said military police reports from Kandahar showed the three men had all suffered injuries to their faces, heads and upper bodies. The professor, Amir Attaran, obtained the reports through an access to information request and said they suggested the detainees had been mistreated. "General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, directed today that a board of inquiry will be convened to investigate detainee handling by Canadian forces members in Afghanistan," the military said in a statement. The reports said one of the men had become "extremely belligerent, to the point that it took four personnel to subdue him", while another was described as "non-compliant". Military police have already opened their own inquiry. Canada has about 2,500 soldiers based in Kandahar. Since 2002, some 44 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan. Allegations of prisoner abuse are a touchy subject in Canada. In 1993, members of the Airborne Regiment, based in Somalia as part of a peacekeeping mission, tortured and beat to death a 16-year-old boy. The regiment was disbanded and several members were subsequently convicted of crimes by courts-martial. "This isn't Somalia. Let's get the scale properly. There's an allegation of some potential abuse of a prisoner. There's no proof that this actually happened," Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor told reporters. O'Connor said it could be "a few months" before the board of inquiry reached a conclusion.
