CAT/C/31/D/186/2001 Page 4 After two hearings by the Federal Office for Refugees (BFF) on 14 November 1996 and 6 March 1997, and one hearing by the immigration police in Zug on 9 December 1996, the Federal Office rejected his asylum application by decision of 23 October 1998, at the same time ordering his deportation to Sri Lanka. While considering documents submitted by the complainant as evidence2 as being authentic, the BFF observed that several contradictions in his statements undermined his credibility. In particular, while he had told the immigration police in Zug that the ICRC delegates had visited him during his second detention in Colombo, he stated during his second hearing by the BFF that he had received these visits during his third and final detention in Colombo. This incoherence, which he could not explain, raised doubts as to whether he had actually been detained three times in Colombo. His statement during the second BFF hearing that he had left Colombo only 12 days after his final release from detention was considered unrealistic, thereby further undermining his credibility. Moreover, the fact that the complainant had been acquitted by a Sri Lankan court and released from police detention several times indicated that he was at no real risk of persecution. The instances of torture alleged by him could not be attributed to the Sri Lankan Government, which had made considerable efforts to improve the domestic human rights situation, but constituted abuses of authority by individual policemen. The medical problems claimed by the complainant (problems to urinate, stomachache, loss of memory) had not affected his ability to travel. 2.7 On 24 November 1998, the complainant appealed the decision of the BFF to the Swiss Asylum Review Commission (Asylrekurskommission), arguing that the apparent contradictions about the timing of the ICRC visits resulted from a misunderstanding, since he had referred to his second arrest by the CID rather than his second detention in Colombo during his second BFF hearing. As to the short time for organizing his departure from Colombo, he claimed that this journey had been planned by his mother and uncle well before his final release from detention, after they had come to the conclusion that he was no longer safe in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the complainant denied that acts of torture by individual members of the police could not be attributed to the Government and that the human rights situation had considerably improved in Sri Lanka. The fact that he had been arrested and tortured subsequent to his acquittal by court only showed that the acquittal did not protect him from being arrested and tortured. 2.8 Subsequently, the complainant submitted two medical reports, one dated 7 December 1998, stating that his genitals displayed four burns likely to have been caused by cigarettes, and one psychiatric report dated 17 January 1999, confirming that he displayed clear symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. By submission of 29 January 1999, the BFF challenged the lack of transparency, scientific accuracy, plausibility and impartiality of the psychiatric report. 2.9 By judgment of 18 September 2000, the Asylum Review Commission dismissed the appeal, essentially based on the same contradictions already highlighted by the BFF. In addition, the Commission expressed doubts about the complainant’s identity, since his brother had previously applied for asylum in Switzerland under the same name and because the complainant had given different dates of birth on different occasions. The Commission also excluded the possibility that, during his second hearing by the BFF, the complainant referred to his final detention when he mentioned a seven-day (instead of a 22-day) 2 The documents include the Sri Lankan court decision of 2 August 1996 acquitting the complainant and a prison card issued by the ICRC.