CAT/C/59/D/649/2015
dated 31 March 2016, the Committee, acting through the Rapporteur, denied the request of
the State party to lift interim measures.
The facts as presented by the complainant
2.1
The complainant was born in Kaluwanchikudy, Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka. In
October 2002, he was drafted into the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in
exchange for his mother’s release. He remained with LTTE for four years, during which
time he attended an LTTE school and was then assigned to work at an LTTE field hospital.
In 2006, he absconded and crossed over to a government-controlled area, where he stayed
with his maternal aunt in Amanakovil. His father managed to get a passport and a visa for
the complainant so that he could go to Qatar to work. The complainant remained in Qatar
until March 2010, when he returned to Sri Lanka. In January 2009, the complainant’s
cousin was abducted in Sri Lanka and has still not been found. In May 2010, the
complainant, not feeling safe, especially in the light of his cousin’s abduction, went to
Kuwait looking for work but, unable to find any, returned to Sri Lanka in November 2010.
While the complainant was in Kuwait, members of the Karuna group came to his father’s
house several times asking for his whereabouts, threatening and hitting his father. On his
return, the complainant stayed with a friend in Vaharai for 14 months, working as a driver
and general help in a shop. As he was still afraid that sooner or later he would be picked up
because of his time with LTTE, his father organized for him to leave on a boat for Australia,
which he did in February 2012.
2.2
The complainant arrived in Australia on 28 June 2012 on a boat from Sri Lanka that
was intercepted by the Australian Navy and taken to Christmas Island; he was detained
upon arrival. On 19 May 2012, he submitted an application for a protection visa (class XA)
to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection that was rejected on 18 July 2013.
The complainant appealed to the Refugee Review Tribunal, which affirmed the decision of
the Department on 7 November 2012. The complainant applied for a judicial review of the
Tribunal’s decision to the Federal Circuit Court of Australia. The Court dismissed the
matter on 18 September 2013. On 25 June 2014, the applicant appealed to the High Court,
which dismissed his appeal on 15 October 2014. The complainant submitted an application
to the Minister of Immigration and Border Protection on 30 October 2014. The Minister
rejected his application on 9 December 2014. There are no further remedies available to the
complainant.
2.3
The complainant states that he cannot return to Sri Lanka because he will be
persecuted. He fears that he will be imprisoned without bail in Negombo jail or be harassed
or abducted if retuned to the north-eastern part of Sri Lanka. The complainant presented as
evidence a copy of a document entitled “Extract from the information book of
Kaluwanchikudy police station” dated 10 January 2015 and an English translation of that
document. The document sets out the details of a complaint made to the police by the
complainant’s father concerning an incident in which unidentified armed persons visited the
home of the complainant’s father and asked about the complainant’s whereabouts. The
visitors allegedly said that the complainant was a former member of LTTE and that they
had received orders to kill him, adding that they would visit the complainant’s father
frequently until the complainant was caught. The complainant alleges that his father had
received similar visits in March, June and October of 2014, but that he had been too
frightened to lodge complaints on those occasions. The complainant also presented to the
Committee a declaration from an individual in a situation similar to his, who was deported
to Sri Lanka after his asylum request had been rejected by Australia and who declares that
he was arrested and tortured for three days upon arrival in Sri Lanka on 1 August 2014. His
interrogators allegedly asked for information about his travel to Australia, about his
application for asylum, about other young men from Batticaloa District who had travelled
to Australia and about “the young Liberation Tigers who had fled to Australia after being
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