CAT/C/71/D/834/2017
stopped at a checkpoint at the airport by the Sri Lankan Army. He was arrested 1 for having
ties with three suspected combatants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).2 The
complainant claims to have been beaten and maltreated by Sri Lankan Army officers who
questioned him about his links to the three LTTE members he was transporting.
2.2
The complainant and his three customers were blindfolded and pushed into a van, and
their hands were tied behind their backs. When the van stopped, the complainant was pulled
from the van and placed in a room. The following day, armed officers in civilian clothes
entered the room and continued the interrogation. The complainant was accused of
transporting militants to help them escape from the country. The officers hit him on the head
with their gun. The following day, he was interrogated and again beaten, this time with a
cricket bat and a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tube, until he lost consciousness.
2.3
On 16 December 2010, the complainant was released, following the payment by a
friend of a bribe in the amount of 700,000 Sri Lankan rupees. 3 The same friend took him to
the friend’s house and informed the complainant that while he had been in custody, his house
had been searched. The friend also told him that his release had been arranged illegally, and
that it was therefore not safe for him to return home to his family. After a week, a smuggler
arranged for the complainant’s departure from the country using a false passport. The
complainant flew to Qatar and then to Romania. From there, he was transported to the
Netherlands by car.4
2.4
On 10 January 2011, the complainant entered the Netherlands, and on 8 March 2011,
he applied for asylum. His asylum application was rejected on 16 March 2011 by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. The same day, the complainant lodged an appeal for
judicial review with the Zwolle District Court.
2.5
The complainant claims that after he fled Sri Lanka, his house was searched by the
authorities in February 2011, after which his wife and mother-in-law5 were taken to the police
station and interrogated there. He claims that his wife was harassed that day and that, together
with their children, she went into hiding.6
2.6
The complainant submits that he is a converted Christian, and he attends church
services in Assen. Tamils frequently visit the church. There, the complainant met a
compatriot and spoke about his story and reasons behind his asylum request. The complainant
submits that, according to his former legal counsel, this compatriot turned out to be an
infiltrated agent from the Criminal Investigation Department of Sri Lanka, which was
collaborating with the Sri Lanka Embassy in The Hague. The complainant fears thus that the
Sri Lanka authorities may have learned about his asylum application.
2.7
On 8 April 2011, the Zwolle District Court decided that the complainant’s appeal for
review was founded. On 15 April 2011, the Minister for Migration lodged an appeal against
the judgment with the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State. By a
judgment of 20 September 2011, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division declared the appeal
to be well founded, overturned the earlier District Court judgment and declared the
application for review lodged with the District Court to be unfounded.
2.8
The complainant submits that because he was tortured during the detention in Sri
Lanka, he suffers a serious pain in his ankle, back and arms, which forced him to undergo
1
2
3
4
5
6
2
The complainant told the Sri Lankan Army that he knew the customers and was subsequently arrested
together with the three Tamil men. The complainant explains that drivers in Colombo usually claim to
know their customers as a form of courtesy.
Tamil separatist organization that was based in north-eastern Sri Lanka.
According to the State party’s observations below, the complainant claimed that a ransom was paid
for his release.
The complainant claims that a human smuggler who arranged the transportation took away his
documents, including fake passport and boarding passes.
The complainant claims that his mother-in-law was ill-treated and died three days after she was
released, but provided no further information in that regard.
The complainant notes that his wife did not provide any details with regard to alleged maltreatment
by the police.