CAT/C/46/D/310/2007 2.8 On 11 November 1996, the complainant lodged another application to have the expulsion order revoked, invoking his ties to his wife and three children in Sweden, as well as his engagement in armed combat as a member of a Christian military group and as a bodyguard of two high-ranking Christian politicians during the Lebanese civil war, which would expose him to a risk of torture and execution on return to Syria or Lebanon. On 19 December 1996, the Swedish Government rejected the application. 2.9 On 27 December 1996, a priest at the Norrköping prison, where the complainant was serving his sentence, lodged a further application with the Government on behalf of the complainant to have his expulsion order revoked. On 16 January 1997, the Government rejected the application. 2.10 On 5 January 1997, the complainant was deported to Syria, escorted by Swedish police, a Syrian security guard and an interpreter. Upon arrival at Damascus airport, he was accused of having participated in armed combat against the Syrian forces in Lebanon, thereby collaborating with “Zionist and Israeli interests”. During long interrogations, he was questioned about the military group he had joined in Lebanon, and was forced to confess his guilt. He was subjected to torture. 2.11 On 7 October 1997, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced the complainant to three years’ imprisonment with hard labour for membership in an organization pursuing the aim of overthrowing the social and economic order of the Syrian State. By joining the terrorist Samir Jahjahs group within the Lebanese Forces, which aimed at dividing Lebanon, he had committed high treason with the intention to undermine the Syrian State. 2.12 The complainant served his sentence in Saydnaya prison in Damascus. He spent the first nine months in solitary confinement, before he was placed in an ordinary cell. During imprisonment, he was subjected to torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment. However, the torture was not as frequent as during the interrogation by the security service. After serving his sentence, he was handed over to the army in 2000 to perform his military service for three years (one year more than the normal military service, in accordance with his sentence) in the town of Homas, where he worked under harsh conditions in an unarmed military construction unit. 2.13 In the beginning of 2003, the complainant finished his military service and settled in his home town Al-Jazire in northern Syria, where his family was living. On arrival, he was summoned to the local office of the security service, where the following restrictions were imposed on him: (a) to report to the security service every other day; (b) to apply for special permission any time he would leave Al-Jazire; and prohibitions (c) to leave Syria; and (d) to apply for state employment. 2.14 The complainant feared for his security and contacted a professional human smuggler who provided him with a forged Syrian passport and visa for France. He left Syria by plane and arrived in Paris, via Cyprus, in May 2003. After one or two days, he travelled to Hamburg, from where he went to Sweden in July 2003. After his departure from Syria, members of the security service regularly visited his family in Al-Jazire asking for him. On one occasion, the complainant’s 80-year old father became so frightened that he required medical treatment in a hospital. 2.15 On 28 May 2003, the complainant’s wife lodged an application on his behalf requesting that his expulsion order be revoked in light of his conviction in Syria and in order to allow him to reunite with his family. By decision of 10 July 2003, the Ministry of Justice rejected the application. 2.16 On 23 November 2004, the complainant lodged another application for revocation of the expulsion order, claiming that he had been (a) tortured through lashes with belts and sticks, electric shocks, squeezing into tyres, suspension by his arms and hands, and beating 4