CAT/C/32/D/182/2001
Page 3
motion, not to return the complainant to Sri Lanka while his case is pending before
the Committee.
The facts as submitted by the complainant:
2.1
The complainant is from Chankanai in the North of Sri Lanka. In July 1995,
he and his family fled the hostilities between combatants in the civil war, and
temporarily stayed in a refugee camp near Navaly. During the bombing of a Catholic
church in Navaly by the Sri Lankan Air Force, he witnessed the killing of numerous
refugees who had sought shelter in that church, including some of his remote
relatives. The complainant and his family subsequently went to the then LTTE1controlled Chavakachcheri, where his younger brother, S., joined the LTTE.
2.2
In January 1996, the complainant and his mother traveled to Colombo to make
arrangements for his departure from Sri Lanka. Following a bomb attack on a bank in
Colombo, in which a neighbour was involved, the complainant and his mother were
arrested by security forces on 31 January 1996, and detained at the Pettah police
station. On 8 and 16 February 1996, the complainant was visited by a delegation of
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and, on 22 February 1996, he
and his mother were released from detention upon payment of a bribe.
2.3
On 30 March 1996, the complainant was arrested during an identity check by
an army patrol that brought him to Welikade prison, where he was interrogated about
his connection with the LTTE. After his release on 1 January 1997, he was returned to
Chankanai. Meanwhile, his younger brother had died, on 18 July 1996, during an
LTTE attack against an army camp near Mullaitivu.
2.4
Following his return to Chankanai, the complainant and his second brother, T.,
were arrested six or seven times, between April and June 1997, by militia of the
EPRLF2 and TELO3. They were taken to a camp near Puttur, where they were
interrogated about their links with the LTTE. During interrogation, they were
allegedly beaten; in one case, they received blows with an iron chain and were burnt
on their back with a hot piece of iron, in order to extract a confession. In July 1997, T.
was once again arrested by militia; he has disappeared since.
2.5
Thereafter, the complainant returned to Colombo, from where he left for
Switzerland via Turkey and Italy on 22 August 1997, using a false passport.
2.6
On 26 August 1997, the complainant applied for political asylum in
Switzerland. Following interviews by the Federal Office for Refugees (BFF) on 26
August 1997 and 22 April 1998, and by the alien police on 14 October 1997, the BFF
rejected his asylum application on 28 October 1998, at the same time ordering him to
leave the country by 15 January 1999. the order was based on the following grounds:
(a) the lack of credibility of his claims concerning his detention at Welikade prison
and the alleged disappearance of his second brother, T., as well as inconsistencies in
the description of his and his brother’s ill-treatment at the hands of the EPRLF/TELO;
(b) the absence of a sufficient link, in time and substance, between his detention at the
1
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam.
Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front.
3
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization.
2