CAT/C/57/D/605/2014 in a request for ministerial intervention. 9 On 18 February 2013, the primary decision maker considered the position of failed asylum seekers who had returned to Sri Lanka. It concluded that while returnees may face investigation at the airport, which takes place regardless of ethnicity and for the purposes of identifying persons with a criminal or adverse security profile, they are safe if they are not connected to any activities of opposition to the Government. As the complainant had not claimed to be engaged in and was not suspected of being engaged in such activity, it was found that the chance of harm befalling him on returning to Sri Lanka was remote. Although the complainant’s allegations that two of his uncles had been killed in 2005 and 2006 and that he had been interviewed by “white van” people about his relationship with one of those uncles were accepted, his claims that he was interrogated in 2008 in connection with another relative’s death were not found to be credible due to inconsistencies in his testimony. Nor was it accepted that people had come to look for him in 2011, given that the complainant did not raise this claim in his initial interview or statutory declaration. It was considered that the mere fact of being a Tamil was no longer a basis for persecution in Sri Lanka, that the author could not be said to have been persecuted and that he had never been accused of having any involvement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. 4.5 The primary decision maker found only a remote chance that the complainant would be subjected to serious harm by government authorities or associated paramilitary groups and that this would amount to persecution due to his race and imputed political opinion. It did not find substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of the complainant being removed from Australia, there is a real risk that he would suffer significant harm, against which he is owed protection under section 36 (2) (aa) of the Migration Act 1958. 4.6 On 7 June 2013, the Refugee Review Tribunal, carrying out an external merits review, affirmed the primary decision maker’s decision not to grant the complainant a protection visa. It accepted that upon returning to Sri Lanka the complainant would go through a process put in place by the domestic authorities, and that he would be subject to a fine but not a custodial sentence for departing illegally. The Tribunal was not satisfied that being an illegal returnee or a failed Tamil asylum seeker, singularly or in combination with his personal and family profile, would give rise to differential treatment or a real chance of serious harm upon return. The State party submits that there have been no reports of torture or other forms of deliberate mistreatment at the Negombo Remand Unit. The Tribunal also noted that the author has lived, worked and travelled in Sri Lanka without harm, at least since the end of the war, and that he was not a particular target for abduction or harm at the time he left Sri Lanka in 2012. The Tribunal also noted evidence that the author’s family members continued to live in Trincomalee without suffering harm. The Tribunal was not satisfied that the complainant’s connection with relatives killed during the civil war has in the past, does at present or will in the reasonably foreseeable future impute to him any links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that would singularly, or cumulatively, give rise to a real chance of serious harm in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, it did not accept the complainant’s claim that he was harmed during the interview conducted in 2006 or that he was interrogated in 2008. Finally, on the basis of reports from UNHCR, the Tribunal noted that there was no longer a need to presume that an applicant required protection simply because he or she was a Tamil.10 The Tribunal concluded that the complainant did not face a real chance of harm in the reasonably foreseeable future in connection with his Tamil race. 4.7 On 17 December 2013, the Federal Circuit Court dismissed the complainant’s application for a judicial review of the Refugee Review Tribunal’s decision. The Court 9 10 GE.16-09596 The author provided copies of each decision in his submissions dated 23 May 2014. UNHCR, “UNHCR eligibility guidelines for assessing the international protection needs of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka”, 5 July 2010 and 21 December 2012. 5