CAT/C/21/D/101/1997
page 7
4.15. The State party concludes that, in the circumstances of the present
case, the author’s return to Turkey would not have the foreseeable and
necessary consequence of exposing him to a real risk of torture. An
enforcement of the expulsion order against the author would therefore not
constitute a violation of article 3 of the Convention.
Counsel's comments
5.1. Regarding the question of admissibility, counsel points out, in her
submission dated 12 May 1998, that the procedure for re-examining a case
provided for in chapter 2, section 5 (b), of the Aliens Act requires that new
circumstances be presented to the Aliens Appeal Board. In the present case
there are no new circumstances. Therefore, all domestic remedies have been
exhausted.
5.2. Counsel maintains that the Swedish Government has not evaluated the risk
the author would face if he were to be expelled to Turkey, but has focused
merely on his credibility. Counsel acknowledges that the author has on
different occasions given the authorities an inconsistent account of his
political activities and his flight; but these inconsistencies are not
material and should be viewed in the light of the fact that the author suffers
from PTSD. In this context counsel refers to the Committee’s jurisprudence in
the cases of Pauline Muzonzo Paku Kisoki v. Sweden and Kaveh Yaragh Tala v.
Sweden where it is stated that “complete accuracy is seldom to be expected by
victims of torture and that such inconsistencies as may exist in the author's
presentation of the facts are not material and do not raise doubts about the
general veracity of the author's claims”. Counsel reiterates that the author
is suffering from PTSD. She states that when asked why he had given different
answers to the National Immigration Board in 1997 and during the initial
investigative procedure in 1990, the author cried out that although he knew it
was important to repeat what he had said almost seven years before, he simply
couldn’t remember.
5.3. Concerning the inconsistencies, counsel further states that they are not
of the magnitude that the State party claims. She states that the author has
in fact not given two completely different versions of how the military
discovered his activities, since the core elements are the same. Further,
counsel draws the attention of the Committee to the fact that the question of
how exactly the author's activities were discovered by the military in
March 1990 is not really an issue, since by that time the author had already
been harassed by the Turkish authorities for several years.
5.4. Counsel further refers to the Swedish Government's remark that no
physical medical evidence had been produced to indicate that the author had
been subjected to torture. She states that according to the specialists at
the Center for Torture and Trauma Survivors in Stockholm it is not surprising
that there are no physical traces on the author's body, since the forms of
torture to which the author was subjected do not necessarily leave marks.
5.5. Counsel concludes that the author has presented sufficient evidence that
he was politically active in the PKK and that he is well known to the Turkish
authorities; that he has been detained, tortured and ill-treated because of
his political activities; and finally that the human rights situation in