CCPR/C/118/D/2412/2014 2.5 The author claims that in the detention facility he was kept separated from other Sri Lankan prisoners and was not put in a regular detention cell. Instead, he was kept in a sergeant’s office, along with a few other foreign nationals, handcuffed to a desk at all times and forced to sit or lie on the floor in an uncomfortable position, without a pillow or mattress. He was also forced to sleep among cockroaches and rats and in tight handcuffs for only a few hours a night. The guards daily berated him, calling him “Canadian Tiger”, and threatened to beat or kill him. He was given very little food and only had a small bottle of water a day. He was not provided with medication for his diabetes until the first time he was visited by officials from the High Commission, which was a few days after his arrest. As a result of not being provided with medication, his untreated diabetes caused significant drowsiness. Moreover, the lack of medication meant that he had to urinate very frequently, but the guards did not always allow him to use the washroom and occasionally he had no choice but to urinate in the clothes he was wearing and to stay in those clothes. From time to time, officers entered the sergeant’s office to mistreat the detainees while interrogating them. The author and other detainees were unchained from their desks and re-handcuffed into painful positions. The guards then slapped them or beat them with hard rubber or metal pipes. On other occasions, the author was forced to watch other detainees being beaten and tortured and to listen to their screams of pain and anguish. The officers also threatened him by telling him that he would be similarly tortured, that he had no need for a lawyer and that he was never going to leave the facility or that they would shoot him in the head. They also threatened him with arresting his wife and raping her. 2.6 The author submits that his wife was able to visit him on 22 September 2007. Subsequently, she was permitted to visit him every Saturday, for only 10-15 minutes in the presence of guards. During the months the author was detained at the facility, he was not brought before a judge or other judicial officer. The lawfulness of his detention was never reviewed and he was not permitted to see a lawyer. 2.7 In October 2007, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment visited the detention centre twice. The Special Rapporteur later reported accounts of torture and ill-treatment collected during his visit.1 On 19 October 2007, the author met delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who were visiting the detention facility. They provided him with a registration card.2 The author explained that he had nothing to sleep on and as a result of ICRC intervention, he was given a thin mattress around December 2007. 2.8 On the evening of 17 December 2007 the second-in command of the detention facility entered the room where the author was held. He was accompanied by several other off-duty guards. They were all drunk. The second-in command told the author that he was not entitled to an ICRC mattress. The officers began to insult the author and beat him in the face, abdomen, arms and legs, saying that they would kill the “Canadian LTTE”. He suffered a swollen left wrist, injured knees and pain in the stomach and groin area as a result of the beating. The following morning, the officer-in-charge warned him not to tell ICRC about the beating that he had received. He then warned the author that such beatings would not happen again once he signed a confession. If he refused to sign the confession, the Terrorist Investigation Division would arrest his wife and child and detain them in the 1 2 The author refers to the report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka (31 March 2011). The author provides a copy of a “detention attestation” issued by ICRC on 4 March 2011, which states that the author was visited for the first time by ICRC delegates in the Terrorist Investigation Division detention facility, Colombo District, on 19 October 2007; that between 6 November 2007 and 10 August 2009, he was visited in the Boosa detention centre (Galle District) and Welikada prison (Colombo District); and that according to the authorities, he was released on 27 August 2010 from Welikada prison. 3

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