- 131 2.2 The complainant maintains that he was arrested several times by the government authorities in Colombo and sometimes held for over a fortnight and that he was tortured on the grounds of being a member of the Tamil Tigers. He says that he was taken before the court on several occasions, the first time being on 15 March 1997, before being released shortly afterwards. He adds that he was arrested again on 3 January 1999 by the Colombo police and detained for a month before being brought before the court again on 10 February 1999. According to the complainant, the judge released him only on condition that he report every Saturday to the office of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in order to sign a register. 2.3 The complainant states that he fled Sri Lanka on 28 March 1999 with the help of a trafficker. He adds that, as a result of his flight, a warrant was issued for his arrest, with reference to which a document issued by the Colombo police was produced dated 23 August 1999. He arrived in Switzerland on 29 March 1999. 2.4 The complainant’s application for asylum in Switzerland, filed on 30 March 1999, was turned down on 18 August 1999. On 10 December 1999, in response to an appeal lodged by the complainant on 21 September 1999, the Swiss Appeal Commission on Asylum Matters upheld the original decision to refuse asylum. The complainant was given until 15 January 2000 to leave the country, but, on 10 January 2000, requested an extension of the deadline on health grounds. On 20 January 2000, the Federal Office for Refugees found that those grounds did not justify postponement, but decided to extend the deadline until 15 February 2000 to allow the author time to prepare his departure. The complaint 3.1 The complainant states that his return to Sri Lanka would heighten the suspicions of the local police that he was a member of the Tamil Tigers, so that he would be in danger of being summarily arrested and tortured on arrival in Colombo. According to the complainant, there is no doubt that any Sri Lankan national of Tamil origin who has fled his country after being persecuted by government forces is more likely to be tortured if he returns to the country. 3.2 The complainant refers to a report by Amnesty International dated 1 June 1999, according to which acts of torture carried out by the security forces are reported on an almost daily basis in the context of the armed conflict with the LTTE. According to the report, the problem also extends to routine policing, with police officers regularly torturing criminal suspects. Thus, again according to the same source, despite existing legal safeguards, torture continues to be practised with relative impunity. 3.3 The complainant concludes that the argument that the persecution he had suffered was not serious enough to entitle him to asylum is worthless when set against the persecution that undoubtedly awaits him if he returns to Sri Lanka. 3.4 The complainant adds that he has been suffering from pleural tuberculosis since May 1999. He states that he received anti-tubercular treatment between May and December 1999 in the department of chest medicine at the teaching hospital of the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. According to the complainant, the doctors in this department believe that his clinical progress should be monitored over the next two years, as the medical condition from