CAT/C/65/D/761/2016 detention in a Sri Lankan prison brings with it the real risk of interrogation, and interrogation brings with it the real risk of torture. He further submits that the risk is personal due to his personal circumstances. It is common practice for the Sri Lankan security forces to hold suspicions and to attempt to resolve those suspicions using interrogation and torture. 7.2 The complainant again draws the Committee’s attention to the fact that prior to 2014, and in his own case, people who arrived in Australia by boat were not entitled to any statutory process: an officer of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship made an assessment and then a recommendation to the Minister. If the recommendation was negative, the applicant could file an appeal through what was called an independent merits reviewer, but these reviewers were independent in name only as they were all on the payroll of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. The complainant further submits that when the independent merits review process was replaced by the International Treaties Obligations Assessment, it was again carried out by an officer of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Subsequently, as a result of further litigation and a ruling by the High Court of Australia, the International Treaties Obligations Assessment process has also been discarded. The complainant notes that despite the State party’s repeated declarations of robust domestic processes, he has been subjected to processes that have been repeatedly found to be unsound, and have not included a truly independent assessment of his claim that he faces a real risk of torture if he is returned to Sri Lanka. 7.3 With regard to the death of his father-in-law, the complainant notes that he only has the photo he tendered as documentary evidence. There was no better evidence or any method of obtaining better evidence available. He states that the initial opinion of the local police was that his father-in-law had died as a result of foul play, but it was not possible to ask for a post-mortem examination of the body. The complainant submits that his father-inlaw’s alleged murder goes to show the seriousness with which his escape from the camp was considered at the time. With regard to the fact that he had left before his father-in-law died, the complainant notes that he was a witness not to the death itself, but to the events leading to the death. He submits that he is a witness to his own escape from the camp and the method of that escape. He argues that his participation in any legal process against the Sri Lanka Army or the Criminal Investigation Department would be essential, so his presence in Sri Lanka in these circumstances would represent a threat to those who perpetrated the murder. 7.4 The complainant rejects the State party’s assertion that his credibility was disputed by the domestic authorities. He submits that the authorities had conjectures about certain issues, such as his father-in-law’s death, and a definite conclusion in those situations was not possible. However, this cannot and should not be regarded as evidence of the complainant’s deceitfulness. With regard to his departure from Sri Lanka, the complainant notes that there was no investigation as to how he obtained his passport and visa, and the issue of whether his departure was legal or not did not even arise until the International Treaty Obligations Assessment process. His father-in-law made the arrangements for his travel documents, so the complainant submits that he simply was not sure whether his departure from Sri Lanka was legal or not. With further expert opinion, the complainant affirms now that the process of obtaining his passport and visa was fraudulent, and therefore his departure was illegal. 7.5 With regard to the judicial review of migration decisions in Australia, the complainant notes that authorities cannot question negative credibility findings, nor can they make conclusions based on inconclusive evidence, except in very extreme cases where the appellant can show unreasonableness. The standard of proof is high. The review is restricted to deciding whether the independent merits review and the International Treaty Obligations Assessment were conducted according to the law, not whether the conclusions they came to were correct. For this reason, the complainant argues that the judicial review was very unlikely to provide him with any relief, even in the unlikely event that the Committee believed the complainant and his conjecture. 7

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