CAT/C/67/D/828/2017 refoulement, nor accompanied at the airport by police officers in order to be put on board an aircraft with the use of physical force. The Court considered whether the State Secretariat had been justified in closing the complainant’s application for review, and if so, whether its closure had a legal effect on the complainant’s situation. It was of the view that the complainant had lost any practical and present interest in a ruling being made on his application, as that application concerned the refusal of asylum. The Court found that the complainant’s argument concerning a defect of consent that had led him to accept an assisted and, consequently, voluntary return, was irrelevant. The information concerning coercive measures to which asylum seekers required to leave Switzerland are exposed if they do not do so within the deadline is provided for in law and therefore cannot be equated, as the complainant asserts, with an unlawful threat intended to persuade him to consent to voluntary departure while he was unsettled by a decision that had entered into force. The complainant had, moreover, already been notified in the decision of the State Secretariat for Migration of 12 May 2017 that he could be detained for the purpose of enforced removal if he did not comply with the removal decision once it entered into force. Moreover, the Court emphasized that the fact that the authorities responsible for enforcing removal had encouraged the complainant to agree to voluntary return by providing assistance for the return complied with the law. 4.7 Accordingly, since the complainant left Switzerland voluntarily, the State party invites the Committee primarily to halt the consideration of the complaint and to strike it from the register. 4.8 On the merits, the State party points out that, under article 3 of the Convention, States parties are prohibited from expelling, returning or extraditing a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities should take into account all relevant considerations, including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. Based on the Committee’s general comment No. 1 (1997) on the implementation of article 3 of the Convention in the context of article 22,3 the State party affirms that the complainant must establish the existence of a personal, present and substantial risk of being subjected to torture upon return to his or her country of origin. The existence of such a risk must be assessed on grounds that go beyond mere theory or suspicion. Other grounds must allow the risk of torture to be classed as “substantial”.4 The following elements must be taken into account in this regard: (a) any evidence of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights in the country of origin; (b) any claims of torture or ill-treatment in the recent past and independent evidence to support those claims; (c) the political activity of the complainant within or outside the country of origin; (d) any evidence as to the credibility of the complainant; and (e) the absence of factual inconsistencies in the complainant’s claims.5 4.9 The State party points out that the existence of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights does not, in itself, constitute sufficient grounds for believing that a particular person would be subjected to torture upon return to his or her country of origin. The Committee must establish whether the complainant is personally at risk of being subjected to torture in the country to which he or she would be returned. 6 Additional grounds must be adduced in order for the risk of torture to qualify as foreseeable, real and personal for the purposes of article 3 of the Convention. 7 The State party recalls that the risk of torture must be assessed on grounds that go beyond mere theory or suspicion. 4.10 Regarding the general human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the State Secretariat for Migration noted in its decision of 12 May 2017 that, except 3 4 5 6 7 4 The Committee’s general comment No. 1 (1997) was replaced in September 2018 by general comment No. 4 (2017) on the implementation of article 3 of the Convention in the context of article 22. General comment No. 1, paras. 6 and 7. Ibid., para. 8. K.N. v. Switzerland (CAT/C/20/D/94/1997), para. 10.2. Ibid., para. 10.5, and J.U.A. v. Switzerland (CAT/C/21/D/100/1997), paras. 6.3 and 6.5. GE.19-14950