CAT/C/34/D/233/2003** Page 28 Attia. 18 In the State party’s view, it became clear during those proceedings that the concerns in respect of confidentiality, which existed already at that time, were not unfounded. In that case, the Committee offered the State party in September 2002 the opportunity to withdraw its initial observations of 8 March 2002 and to submit a new version in view of the fact that the Committee could not guarantee that “any of the information submitted by the parties to the case would not be disclosed in any of its decisions or views on the merits of the case”. Furthermore, in January 2003 counsel for Hanan Attia appended a briefing note from Amnesty International in London to his own observations, from which it was clear that counsel had made the State party’s observations of 8 March 2002 available to Amnesty International. 12.14 The State party argues that its concerns with regard to the Committee’s ability to uphold respect for the confidentiality of its proceedings were reflected in its repeated requests and comments concerning the confidentiality of the information that was in fact included in the initial observations of 5 December 2003 in the present case. However, in the light of the foregoing, the conclusion was drawn that only part of the classified information found in the Security Police’s written opinion of 30 October 2001 to the Migration Board could be revealed. Another conclusion was that the information contained in the embassy’s report from its first visit on 23 January 2002 to the complainant in detention should not be fully accounted for either. The reason for the latter conclusion was that it could not be ruled out that the information concerning ill- treatment provided by the complainant during the embassy’s first visit would later be found in the public domain and thus become known to the Egyptian authorities. 12.15 The State party concludes that for these reasons not all the information that emerged at the embassy’s first visit was revealed to the Committee. If such unconfirmed information had been released at that stage, and with the indirect assistance of the Swedish Government, this could have resulted in reprisals against the complainant. The risk for reprisals was not deemed to be insignificant, irrespective of whether the information was correct or not. If the information regarding the complainant’s ill- treatment was correct - although such treatment did not appear to amount to torture within the meaning of the Convention -, this would have meant that the diplomatic assurances had not had the intended effect to protect him against treatment in breach of Sweden’s international obligations, including treatment prohibited under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In such a case, there was an apparent risk that the disclosure of the information would put the complainant at risk of further ill- treatment and maybe even of torture. On the other hand, if the disclosed information was incorrect, this could have had a negative impact on the relations between Sweden and Egypt. In turn, it could have led to problems as far as the embassy’s monitoring efforts were concerned. In this situation, when the different risks involved were assessed, the conclusion was reached that the best course of action would be to await the report of the embassy’s next visit. 12.16 The State party points out that according to the embassy’s report from its second meeting with the complainant in the detention facility, there were at that time no indications of torture or other ill- treatment. However, even prior to the third visit on 14 April 2002, information was circulating to the effect that the complainant’s mother had stated publicly that her son had been tortured after his return to Egypt. The embassy’s report from the first visit on 23 January 2002 confirmed the information submitted by the complainant’s mother, 18 Op.cit.