CAT/C/58/D/609/2014 Facts as presented by the complainant 2.1 The complainant comes from a farming family in Trincomalee District. Part of his family’s land was occupied by the Sri Lanka Army at the beginning of the civil war, but the family continued to live in their house. In 2001, one of the complainant’s brothers was killed. The complainant believes that he was killed by the Army on suspicion of supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). After the death of his brother, the complainant was interrogated and beaten by the Army who questioned him about his involvement with LTTE. Two months after, he moved to the city of Trincomalee to work as a tailor. In 2005, he moved to Vanni in the Northern Province, where he opened a tailor shop in 2006. For about six months in 2008, he was forced to sew uniforms for LTTE without pay. During the final stages of the war, the complainant escaped and hid in a bunker in the Vanni area for a few months. He sustained an injury in the head owing to heavy shelling in the area and was taken to the Kurunegala hospital by Army officers. He was later transferred to the Vavuniya hospital. Warned by the hospital staff that the Army was taking young Tamils to their camps upon discharge, he escaped to Colombo. In June 2009, he went to India with a valid passport and a three-month visa. His other brother had been living in India since 2007. 2.2 On 4 November 2010, the complainant arrived in Australia by boat and on 14 January 2011, he sought asylum. He requested protection on the basis of fear of being arrested, interrogated, imprisoned and beaten or killed by the Sri Lanka Army, the Criminal Investigation Department, the police or political groups supporting the Government in identifying LTTE supporters. He believed that, because he was a young, single Tamil man from the Trincomalee area, had a scar and had admitted to assisting LTTE, he would be harmed on suspicion that he was involved in the fighting. He states that after considering relevant country information and his statement,1 the Department of Immigration and Citizenship rejected his protection visa application on 20 April 2011. It found that he did not have any political profile in Sri Lanka or any LTTE affiliation that would bring him to the attention of the authorities. Also, given that, in 2009, he left Sri Lanka legally, it had no reason to believe that he would experience any difficulties on his return or be exposed to the risk of harm as a failed asylum seeker. 2.3 On 6 May 2011, the complainant requested an independent merits review of the refugee status assessment of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. On 23 July 2012, the reviewer rejected his protection visa application based mainly on the grounds that his statements lacked credibility. The complainant stated in his initial interview that the boat on which he arrived in Australia had come from Sri Lanka, when in fact it had come from India. In his statutory declaration, he stated that he had been beaten by the Army, although he had not mentioned that it in the entry interview and he altered his statement during the independent merits review interview. He was not consistent in his claim regarding who shot his brother and did not provide any credible evidence as to how he learned that he was shot by the Army. He changed his statement regarding making uniforms or civilian clothes for LTTE in 2008 as well as regarding whether his brother was living in a refugee camp in India. The complainant’s claims that he is a suspected LTTE supporter were dismissed by the interviewer as contradicting his claim that the Army, who was based on part of his family’s land, knew that his family was not helping LTTE. The reviewer 1 2 Reference is made to, inter alia, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from Sri Lanka, 5 July 2010; Denmark, Danish Immigration Service, “Human rights and security issues concerning Tamils in Sri Lanka”, October 2010; Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Sri Lanka: treatment of Tamils”, Country Information Report No. 10/58, 21 September 2010 (CX249694).