CAT/C/60/D/708/2015
4.16 It submits that following the complainant’s request for an international treaties
obligation assessment, he was assessed on 27 June 2011 as not falling within the category
of people to whom the State party owes protection obligations. The submission provided by
the complainant outlined again his fear of returning to Sri Lanka and his claims that he
would be perceived as an LTTE member. The complainant repeated his claim that he was
placed in a refugee camp for 10 months in 2009, during which time he was regularly
tortured by the Sri Lankan army, including on an occasion when his hand was broken, and
interrogated about his suspected involvement in LTTE and that of his family members. 24
The complainant also reiterated his claim that he had escaped from the camp thanks to a
bribe, that his brother-in-law had been kidnapped and other relatives arrested.
4.17 The State party indicates that according to country information examined by the
competent authorities, it is unlikely that a returned asylum seeker would experience adverse
treatment upon return, solely on the basis of an illegal departure and bid for protection. 25
They further consider that as the complainant was able to leave and return to Sri Lanka
without adverse consequences in 2007, he did not have a profile of interest to the Sri
Lankan authorities. The State party immigration authorities also noted that there was no
evidence that the complainant had ever been involved in political activities, that he had a
political profile of any significance, or that he had a criminal record which would make him
a target for the authorities in Sri Lanka.
4.18 Regarding the complainant’s claims of detention and torture, the State party submits
that its authorities considered that if the Sri Lankan army had known or suspected that the
complainant was an LTTE member and had been detained in a camp, his movements would
have been limited, making his escape almost impossible. The decision maker considered
that the type of support that the complainant claimed to have given the LTTE by way of
cutting sticks and digging bunkers was no different from the support that many Tamils
living in the north were forced to provide. The authorities of the State party also noted that
the complainant had not claimed that his family members, who were also released from
camps in 2009, had attracted any attention from the Sri Lankan authorities since then. They
also considered that according to reliable sources of information on the country, the
insecurity faced by Tamils in Sri Lanka had reduced and that the situation had significantly
stabilized.
4.19 The State party submits that according to the international treaties obligation
assessment carried out in 2011, the author had not submitted any new information that
would change the previous assessments of his refugee status and there was no evidence
indicating that returning the author to his home country would breach the State party’s nonrefoulement obligations under the Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.26
4.20 The State party reports that on 7 August 2012 a post-review protection check
assessment of the complainant’s claims was completed. The Department found that the
complainant had provided no evidence or information to indicate that he was of adverse
interest to non-State actors or the authorities in Sri Lanka and that as his case did not meet
the post-review protection check assessment guidelines of the Minister of Immigration and
Border Protection, it was not referred to the Minister for his consideration. 27 On 5 October
2011, the complainant submitted documents including a missing person’s report filed with
the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society by the author’s mother; 28 a certified report from a Sri
Lankan justice of the peace stating that the author was displaced during the war, searched
by security forces on suspicion of involvement in LTTE terrorist activities, arrested in May
24
25
26
27
28
6
The State party explains that the complainant “has repeated this claim, however the torture in 2009
has been variously attributed to either the SLA (during the SRA assessment in 2010, p. 9) or the CID
(ITOA, p. 3) and again to the SLA (ITOA 2015, p. 4). The (complainant) now submits to the
Committee that, during the time he claimed to have been tortured, he had already left Sri Lanka (in
September 2007) and travelled to Tamil Nadu, where he remained until travelling to Australia in
January 2010.”
See international treaties obligation assessment (2011), p. 9.
Ibid., p.10.
See post-review protection claims assessment (2012), p. 6.
The State party does not provide further information in that regard.