2.8 According to the author, his right to free legal assistance had been exhausted and the Advisory Group agreed to take his case on a voluntary basis. On 1 and 9 September 1998, the Advisory Group made additional requests for reconsideration and deferred execution of the expulsion decision, which were rejected on 16 September 1999. The author has submitted to the Committee, in this regard, copies of 16 pieces of correspondence between the Advisory Group and the Ministry of Justice, including a medical certificate from a psychiatric nurse indicating that the author suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. The date of expulsion was finally set for 21 January 1999. 2.9 The author states that all the inconsistencies regarding dates referred to by the Norwegian authorities can be explained by the fact that during the initial interrogation he agreed to be questioned in English, not having been informed that he had the right to have an Amharic interpreter present. He states that since the difference in years between the Ethiopian and Norwegian calendar is approximately eight years, when he tried to calculate the time in Norwegian terms and translate this into English, several dates became confused. The situation was further complicated by the fact that in Ethiopia the day starts at the equivalent of 6 o'clock in the morning in Norway. That meant that when the author said "2 o'clock" , for instance, it should be interpreted as "8 o'clock". 2.10 The author further states that during the interrogation he referred to the Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Coalition (SEPDC) as the "Southern People's Political Organization" (SPPO), which does not exist. He claims that the error was due to the fact that he only knew the name of the organization in Amharic. However, he gave the correct name of the leader of the SEPDC, who was one of his contact persons. 2.11 Finally, the author provided a detailed explanation regarding the discrepancies between his statements and the information provided by his mother to the representative of the Norwegian Embassy in Nairobi. The complaint 3. The author argues that he would be in danger of being imprisoned again and tortured if he were to return to Ethiopia. He says that during the asylum procedure, the immigration authorities did not seriously examine the merits of his asylum claim and did not pay enough attention to his political activities and his history of detention. State party's observations on admissibility 4.1 By its submission of 31 March 1999, the State party challenges the admissibility of the communication owing to the failure to exhaust domestic remedies, and asks the Committee to withdraw its request under rule 108, paragraph 9, of its rules of procedure. 4.2 The State party submits that applications for political asylum are dealt with in the first administrative instance by the Directorate of Immigration, while a possible administrative appeal is decided by the Ministry of Justice. As soon as a person submits an application for asylum, an attorney is appointed. Thus, at the time he gives his first statement to the immigration authorities, the applicant has free legal representation. 4.3 Following the usual practice the author was informed that: (a) he was obliged to give the authorities all relevant information as thoroughly as possible; (b) additional information could be supplied later, but that could weaken the trustworthiness of the application; and (c) the civil servants and interpreters "dealing with 186