CAT/C/59/D/652/2015 owing to his ethnicity and/or suspected connections with LTTE since 1994. It also found that owing to inconsistencies, the complainant’s incident with R.M. was not credible. The Tribunal further noted that the complainant had exited and re-entered Sri Lanka through legal channels since 1994; that he had not faced any adverse attention from the Sri Lankan authorities; and that relevant country information suggested that failed asylum seekers were not arbitrarily detained unless they had an outstanding criminal record, which was not the complainant’s case. Accordingly, it concluded that there were no substantial grounds for believing that the complainant would be at risk of serious harm if deported. 4.4 With regard to the complainant’s request for ministerial intervention under sections 417 and 48B of the Migration Act, the State party notes that the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection can intervene in individual cases if he considers that it is in the public interest to do so. The complainant’s request, however, did not meet the requirements for a ministerial intervention. 4.5 The complainant was questioned on all instances of detention in Sri Lanka, but did not provide any detail or evidence to substantiate his claim that he was detained and mistreated in 2000. In any case, such detention does not appear to have led to any ongoing difficulty for him in Sri Lanka as he was able to travel abroad and to return to Sri Lanka in 2006 and 2009, respectively, and to work until his departure in 2012. 4.6 The State party maintains that its authorities have specifically and carefully considered whether his condition as failed asylum seeker may put him at serious risk of torture, taking into account relevant country information contained in the reports of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), States and wellknown non-governmental organizations, which did not contradict those cited by the complainant. Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 20 January 2016, the complainant provided his comments on the State party’s observations. He reiterates his previous allegations and points out that he was severely and repeatedly tortured during his time in prison between 1993 and 1994. He was hung, beaten (causing him to suffer a broken nose on one occasion), burned and stripped naked. He was not allowed to receive visits from his family for three months, until his wounds became less apparent. He was also arrested again in 2000 by the local police, on grounds of suspicion of having a connection with LTTE. During this detention, he was given the strictly minimum amount of food, blindfolded, hung upside down and beaten on the soles of his feet. The officers placed a gun in his mouth and forced him to sniff petrol inside a plastic bag wrapped over his head. As during the previous detention, he was not allowed to receive visits from his family. 5.2 The complainant submits that in 2004 a rift occurred between LTTE and the Karuna faction. In this context, he and other taxi drivers were forced to give their vehicles to members of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front, the Karuna group and LTTE, who used them to carry out attacks and kidnappings. A colleague from his threewheeler taxi company was shot dead by LTTE members, without any subsequent investigation by the Sri Lankan authorities. 5 As he considered his work as a taxi driver dangerous, he decided to leave Sri Lanka and went to Dubai in 2006. 5 6 The complainant provides copies of a death certificate dated 16 June 2005, with a translation into English, which states that a person died by gunshot on 9 June 2005; a copy of a taxi parking permit, in Tamil; and a copy of a half-page newspaper article in Tamil which he claims reports his friend’s murder.