31 international standards, there should be two distinct stages: (a) the initial stage of triggering the procedure; and then (b) the stage of establishing whether the evidence was obtained by torture. would not normally be in a position to establish how they were treated. Furthermore, the defendant will not always be the victim of the torture: a defendant may be seeking to exclude statements made by third parties. The defendant may have no knowledge of the circumstances in which a particular statement was procured, and it may be onerous to demonstrate why the statement should be subject to challenge, other than by way of generalised evidence about the likelihood of torture in a particular context. In such cases, which have typically arisen in the security context, it would be unreasonable to require an applicant to do more than raise a ‘plausible reason’150 why evidence may have been procured by torture. After this the burden of establishing whether there is a ‘real risk’ that the evidence has been obtained by torture should transfer to the party seeking to rely on the evidence.151 The UN Human Rights Committee has stated that the defendant must first make a prima facie case by advancing a plausible reason or producing a credible complaint or evidence of ill-treatment in order to trigger the procedure. The burden should then shift to the prosecution to prove that a confession was voluntary.145 Similarly, the UN Committee Against Torture has determined that, once a defendant has demonstrated their claim that torture occurred is ‘well-founded’, the burden of proof should shift to the state to prove that the evidence was not obtained by torture if it is to be admitted.146 At 5am one morning in July 1993, Singarasa was arrested in his village in Sri Lanka along with 150 other Tamil men. They were not informed of the reasons for their arrest but were taken to an Army Camp and accused of supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. During his detention Singarasa’s hands were tied together, he was kept hanging from a mango tree and was allegedly assaulted by members of the security forces. Over the period until September 1993, he alleged that he was subjected to torture which included being pushed into a water tank and held under water, and then blindfolded and laid face down and assaulted. He also alleged that he was held in incommunicado detention; had no access to a lawyer; and was not given any opportunity to obtain medical assistance. On 30 September 1993, Singarasa allegedly made a statement to the police. The statement was challenged during a ‘voir dire’ hearing,148 but the court concluded that the confession was admissible: domestic legislation required any statement to be admissible if the defendant had not established that the statement was not made voluntarily. Singarasa was convicted of a number of terrorist offences and sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment. The UN Human Rights Committee found a violation of Article 14 (Fair Trial) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights read in conjunction with Article 7 (Torture) as the complainant had been ‘forced to sign a confession and subsequently had to assume the burden of proof that it was extracted under duress and was not voluntary’.149 The requirement for the state to bear the burden of proof in establishing that evidence was not obtained by torture recognises the fact that the state has responsibility for the treatment of individuals in its custody. The state should be able to demonstrate that appropriate safeguards against mistreatment have been complied with. A defendant, on the other hand, CASE STUDY SINGARASA V SRI LANKA (2004)147 Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, recognised this conundrum in his 2006 report. After reviewing two cases from Germany and the United Kingdom which had grappled with the burden and standard of proof in security-related cases where the applicants were ill-placed to discharge the initial burden, he explained: ‘The central question here is the interpretation of the word ‘established’. It is of utmost importance in this respect that there exists a procedure which affords protection to the individual against whom the evidence is invoked without imposing a burden of proof on either party that they would not be able to discharge. However, with an increasing trend towards the use of ‘secret evidence’ in judicial proceedings, possibly obtained by torture inflicted by foreign officials, together with a too-heavy burden being placed on the individual, there exists the potential of undermining the preventive element of Article 15’.152 Rapporteur Nowak concluded that a complainant ‘must first advance a plausible reason why evidence may have been procured by torture’ after which it would be ‘for the court to inquire as to whether there is a real risk that the evidence has been obtained by torture and, if there is, the evidence should not be admitted’.153 The Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism has stated: ‘If there are doubts about the voluntariness of statements by the accused or witnesses, for example, when no information about the circumstances is