A/HRC/7/3/Add.6 page 7 11. The conditions for independent fact-finding were further impeded by certain instances, where detainees were hidden or brought away shortly before the Special Rapporteur arrived.1 For example, 59 persons out of 110 had been transferred from the Boosa detention facilities on order of the director of the Terrorist Investigation Department in the days leading up to the Special Rapporteur’s visit. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the Special Rapporteur received the information from the remaining detainees that the transferred persons were those who had been most seriously tortured before and still bore marks of the ill-treatment. After the Special Rapporteur protested against such obvious attempts to prevent him from talking to persons previously detained in Boosa, he was provided with a list of the detainees concerned with details of their whereabouts and, in fact, could trace many of these detainees later at TID headquarters and the Colombo Remand Prison. At the first visit in TID, the Special Rapporteur was informed by detainees that one male detainee had been brought away in order to hide him. At his second visit, the Special Rapporteur could meet this detainee, who told him that he was forced to lie under a bench in an office until the Special Rapporteur had left the facility. 1 By letter dated 20 February 2008, the Government stated: [T]he allegations made are of a potentially serious nature and confirmation of the facts on which the allegations are based are yet to be conclusively clarified. The [Special Rapporteur] states that some detainees were “hidden” or “brought away” from Boosa detention facility to presumably avoid exposure to him and then, in the same paragraph, states that he “in fact, could trace many of these detainees later at TID headquarters and the Colombo Remand Prison”. The fact that the [Special Rapporteur] could trace the whereabouts of these detainees (albeit at a later time - see paragraph 72) is sufficiently indicative that they were being processed by the criminal justice system and were not being deliberately prevented from meeting the [Special Rapporteur]. The [Special Rapporteur] goes on to cite only one case at the Terrorist Investigation Division where a detainee was supposedly concealed during an initial visit and, on the second visit of the [Special Rapporteur], met the [Special Rapporteur] and said that he was instructed to hide “under a bench” until the [Special Rapporteur]’s initial visit was concluded. Even this detainee therefore was not permanently “hidden” from the [Special Rapporteur]. The other comments of the [Special Rapporteur] relating to detainees in Mount Lavinia being kept in a bus until his visit was over is questionable, since the police officers of individual police stations were unaware of the [Special Rapporteur]’s movements and would be unable to predict with certainty when (or if) the [Special Rapporteur] would visit their stations. A comment is made to the effect that the detainees in question were taken to an “unknown place believed to be Ratmalana Police Post shortly upon arrival of the Special Rapporteur” and returned to the place of detention after the [Special Rapporteur]’s visit. No interview with these four detainees at any time is indicated and no source for the information is identified. No assertion is made as to these detainees showing any signs of ill-treatment or complaining of such treatment. The reported incidents at Bogambara Prison have resulted in a preliminary disciplinary inquiry being conducted against the officer concerned and formal charges are to be proffered against that officer by the Prisons Department. Further clarification is being sought from TID as to the reasons for the movement of detainees during the period of the [Special Rapporteur]’s visit.