CAT/C/30/D/191/2001
page 3
The facts as submitted by the complainant
2.1
The complainant lived in the Jaffna district from 1989 until 1995, where he worked as a
karate teacher and also gave lessons to members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE). Although he sympathized with the LTTE, he refused to give lessons at their military
camps. When the Sri Lankan army took over Jaffna in late 1995, he fled to Chavakachchery,
and thereafter to Killinochi, together with his wife and children.
2.2
On 7 April 1996, the complainant’s mother died in Trincomalee, which was controlled
partly by the LTTE, partly by the Sri Lankan army. The complainant wanted to travel to
Trincomalee to pay tribute to his deceased mother but was refused a travel pass by the LTTE
because he did not have anyone to vouch for him.1 In June 1996, in return for free karate lessons
which he gave to some LTTE members, he finally managed to obtain permission to travel to
Mullaitivu - still located in the LTTE-controlled area - together with a guide. After staying in
Mullaitivu for two months at the house of a fisherman, he travelled to the Trincomalee district on
a fishing boat. He hid for two to three months with a Tamil in the Anbuvelipuram district of
Trincomalee before he went to his sister’s house in the centre of Trincomalee in November 1996.
2.3
On 13 December 1996, two days after the LTTE had bombed a military camp of the
Sri Lankan army, the army conquered Trincomalee and arrested a large number of people,
including the complainant. Everyone above the age of 12 had to stand in front of a temple where
a masked man picked out the complainant and other men. The complainant was brought to a
military camp in Trincomalee where he was detained for approximately two months. He was
locked with four other men in a narrow cell with little light and a concrete floor and without any
furniture. He was given one daily meal of poor quality. Since the cell did not have a toilet, the
prisoners had to relieve themselves in the corners of the room, excrements being removed from
the cell occasionally. Reportedly, the soldiers entered the cell regularly, especially following
armed attacks by the LTTE, to maltreat the prisoners by kicking and beating them, sometimes
asking questions at the same time. The complainant states that he was asked whether he was a
karate teacher, which he denied. He and the other men were often naked or, respectively,
dressed in underwear only. Frequently, the soldiers poured water on them before the beating
began. The complainant was beaten in many different ways: with the flat hand, the fist, the back
of a rifle and with a rubber rod. Once he was allegedly beaten on his soles with a round stick
causing him severe pain in his feet for several days. Another time, he was put against a
cupboard with his hands up and was hit on his back with a rubber rod causing him chronic pain
in the back, which allegedly persists to date. He was fist-punched on his eye, leaving an injury
on one of his eyebrows. Soldiers also beat him on the genitals and on the kidneys, which
resulted in a swollen testicle and blood in his urine. Moreover, he was allegedly burned with a
hot stick on his left arm, leaving scars. The big toe of his right foot was severely injured when
his torturers stamped on that foot with their boots. When the soldiers hit his right hand with a
broken bottle and asked him “Aren’t you a karate teacher?”, he lost consciousness.2
2.4
The complainant woke up in a hospital in the military camp where he stayed for a few
days until an unknown Muslim man named Nuhuman managed to organize his escape. The
complainant suspects that his sister had paid money to Nuhuman and that the latter had bribed
the guards in front of his hospital room. The complainant states that, together with Nuhuman, he
was able to leave the hospital and the military camp without any difficulty.