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