CCPR/C/118/D/2412/2014
detention centre. The author requested access to a lawyer, without success. He maintained
his innocence and refused to sign any kind of confession.
2.9
In April 2008, he was transferred to the Boosa detention centre in Galle. On 1 May
2008, the Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Defence ordered that the author be
detained there for 90 days. The author submits that at the Boosa detention centre he was
kept in solitary confinement in a small cell without a toilet or water. He was forced to
urinate in a bottle and defecate in a plastic bag. Each day, he was taken to an interrogation
room for questioning. He was not beaten by the guards, but he was forced to observe severe
beatings and threatened with having the same brutal treatment inflicted on him. In April or
May 2008, the author was visited by an official of the Canadian High Commission. The
author told the official about the events he had lived through and witnessed at the Boosa
detention centre and asked him to try to get him sent back to a jail in Colombo.
2.10 In late July 2008, the author was temporarily taken back to the Terrorist
Investigation Division detention facility in Colombo. He claims that he was pressured to
confess to being a member of the international intelligence wing of LTTE. The
interrogators threatened to arrest his wife, rape her and kill his child if he refused to confess.
In early August 2008, the interrogators told him that they would get a detention order
against his wife. After an hour of interrogation, in order to protect his wife from the threats,
the author hand-wrote in Tamil a statement to the effect that he had imported an illegal GPS
device for LTTE. He was then sent back to the Boosa detention centre.
2.11 In or about September 2008, the author’s case was finally brought before a
magistrate’s court. The author claims that at his brief first appearance, he submitted that he
was a Canadian citizen; that he had not been charged with any offence; and that there were
no legal grounds for his arrest and continued detention. The author claims that the
magistrate responded that “under the Emergency Regulations we can keep people for up to
18 months without charges”; that the police had produced a four-page report containing
numerous lies to justify his detention, including that he had used a company registered in
his wife’s name to import high-tech devices from South-East Asia; that he was a member of
the LTTE intelligence wing and had a close relationship with the rebel intelligence chief
P.A.; and that he and another Tamil man were LTTE associates, who were conspiring to
assassinate government ministers and military generals in Colombo. Based on that report,
the magistrate authorized the author’s continued detention and transfer to Welikada prison.
2.12 On or about 4 November 2008, High Court No. 2 (which dealt with the Emergency
Regulations) issued an indictment against him. It submitted that the author had personal
knowledge that a member of the LTTE intelligence wing was operating within Sri Lanka
and that he had failed to alert the Sri Lankan authorities to this situation. On approximately
13 October 2009, the author appeared at High Court No. 1 (which dealt with the Prevention
of Terrorism Act) and was formally charged with illegally importing a GPS device and
aiding and abetting LTTE.
2.13 While in detention at Welikada prison, the author was twice visited by ICRC
delegates and also by staff of the Canadian High Commission. He claims that he was kept
in maximum security detention, alongside convicted murderers. The guards treated him
even more harshly and refused to provide him with his diabetes medication. At that time,
the author began experiencing joint and chest pains. On 2 March 2010, the High
Commission sent a letter to the Commissioner of Prisons requesting the authorities to make
the necessary arrangement to take him to the hospital for medical treatment. 3 The author
claims that he was later taken to the general hospital, where a doctor said he needed to be
admitted, but the police refused and returned him to prison. The doctor wrote a note
3
4
The author provides a copy of a facsimile from the High Commission of Canada addressed to the
Superintendent of Prisons in Colombo on 2 March 2010.