CAT/C/62/D/696/2015
financing and providing assistance to the organization. The complainant was interrogated
four times, with each one lasting about one and a half hours. During the interrogations, he
was kicked with army boots and beaten with the back of rifles. After two days, his father
managed to get him out of the camp. The complainant was required to report to the
authorities once a week. He was given a letter written in Sinhalese, which he could not read.
He had to show this letter every time he reported to the authorities. On an unspecified date,
the complainant was released from the reporting duty.
2.3
The complainant was again arrested and detained in an army camp by the Special
Task Forces in November 2008. He was interrogated twice, in a threatening way, and
released the same day. He was asked to be an informant for the Forces, but he did not
respond to the request. He was arrested a third time in August 2009, because the Special
Task Forces had apprehended his friend who had alleged that the complainant was involved
with LTTE. Later, the complainant found out that his friend had hidden weapons near his
house. The complainant was again threatened and intimidated by the Forces and detained
for two days. He was told not to leave the area and to be available for further inquiries.
After his release, the complainant lived with several relatives. In December 2009, some
members of the Karuna Group (the Tamil Peoples Liberation Tigers) came looking for the
complainant at his work and his house, but did not find him. They damaged windows and
the front gate of his house and injured the complainant’s brother in his shop. The brother
reported the damage to the police, but as far as the complainant knows, the police did not
do anything. On 27 March 2010, the complainant was arrested and detained for seven days
by the Karuna Group. The complainant states that he was subjected to serious ill-treatment
by officers of the Special Task Forces (with whom the Karuna Group collaborated), who
caused him physical and psychological harm. They hit him with a flexible tube on his back
and kicked him multiple times in his stomach. The complainant had had problems with his
back in the past, but they became worse following this ill-treatment. Because of the injuries
suffered, he is now in constant pain, mostly in the lower part of his back and hips and he
cannot sit for more than 30 minutes in one position. Moreover, he has several small scars
on his back. He was held in the Karuna camp, but he managed to escape after a week in
detention. The complainant states that he was arrested by the Karuna Group because they
thought that he had helped to hide the above-mentioned friend’s weapons.
2.4
The complainant fled Sri Lanka on 8 June 2010 with a Sri Lanka passport, which
was arranged by a travel agent. The travel agent had arranged a visa for India and Nigeria.
After a few months in India, the complainant was told by the travel agent that he had to
come back to Sri Lanka before continuing his journey to Nigeria. He was picked up at
Colombo airport by the travel agent and taken to a hotel. Later, he took a flight to Nigeria.
Upon his arrival in the Netherlands on 2 October 2010,1 he reported to the Dutch authorities
in order to submit an application for asylum. On 9 October 2010, the complainant applied
for asylum. Thereafter, he was transferred to a refugee reception centre. On 15 August 2011,
the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) rejected his asylum application. It
concluded that the complainant’s story lacked credibility. In addition, a medical doctor
examined him and concluded that he did not have any problems with memory or
concentration and that he was capable of producing consistent and coherent statements.
2.5
On 12 September 2011, the complainant appealed the negative decision of IND
before a court. On 30 December 2011, the complainant was examined by the Medical
Examination Commission of Amnesty International, which concluded that it was plausible
that the scars on the complainant’s body and his health problems (physical and
psychological) could have been caused by ill-treatment as stated by the complainant. The
complainant submitted this information to the court in March 2012.2 On 21 August 2012,
the court decided in favour of the complainant and ordered IND to re-examine his asylum
case given the Medical Examination Commission’s conclusions. It also considered that the
decision of IND was not sufficiently reasoned.
2.6
On 19 September 2012, IND appealed the court’s decision of 21 August 2012 before
the Council of State. On 25 August 2014, IND’s appeal arguments were found by the
1
2
2
The complainant does not explain how he ended up in Netherlands after travelling to Nigeria.
The complainant does not specify which court.