present an arguable case is on the complainant, in accordance with paragraph 5 of the general comment on the implementation of article 3 adopted by the Committee on 21 November 1997. By reference to this general comment, the State party points out that the Committee is not an appellate, quasi-judicial or administrative body but rather a monitoring body. The present communication does not contain any information that had not already been examined extensively by the Danish Immigration Service and the Refugee Board. The State party submits that, in its view, the complainant is attempting to use the Committee as an appellate body in order to obtain a new assessment of a claim already thoroughly considered by Danish immigration authorities. 4.4As to whether there are substantial grounds for believing that the complainant would be in danger of being subjected to torture if returned to the Russian Federation, the State party refers to the decision of the Refugee Board in its entirety. In the decision of the Refugee Board of 21 March 2002, it was held that the complainant and his wife had “not rendered probable in a convincing and credible way that after their return to Russia in 1994 and until their departure in 1999 they had been subjected to asylum-relevant outrages, or that upon a return they would be at such risk thereof that there was a basis for granting them residence permits under section 7 of the Aliens Act”. 4.5The State party submits that the Refugee Board’s assessment corresponds to the practice of the Committee in considering past torture as one of the elements to be taken into account when considering whether a complainant would risk being tortured if returned to his country of origin. In this regard, the Board attached decisive importance to the opinion of 21 December 2000, stating, inter alia, that no obvious physical or mental effects of torture as stated by the complainant were found at his examination. The Board therefore set aside the complainant’s statement of having been subjected to torture. 4.6A translation of the opinion of 21 December 2000 has not been provided but is interpreted by the State party.b During the examination, the author claimed to have been subjected to various forms of torture. The examination concluded that there were no signs of fresh violence. As signs of older violence, were found a small non-specific scar on his back and on his left foot. Moreover, there were depressions on the outer side of his front teeth. It is stated that these changes might be due to corrosive burns, but were not otherwise specific. The author was found to suffer from a substantial personality change, which could be seen as a chronic development of a post-traumatic stress disorder, but most likely the disorder should be diagnosed as a paranoid psychosis (mental disorder with delusions of persecution). By way of conclusion, the Department of Forensic Medicine stated that no obvious physical or mental effects of torture as stated in the case had thus been found directly. 4.7In setting aside the statement that the author had been subjected to torture, the Board found that this decisively weakened the author’s case. It further noted that the statement of the author’s wife was less convincing, and that despite repeated questioning - she had only been able to explain about the reason for the final decision on the departure in general terms. The Board concluded that it could not accept either the author’s statement or his wife’s statement about their asylum motive. Although it did not entirely reject their statements to the effect that the author had carried out activities for the Citizens Union concerning civil rights issues, that he had certain conflicts with the authorities and that a search had been carried out of their home, upon an overall assessment of the information provided it found that the author and his wife had not rendered probable in a convincing and credible way that after their return in 1994 and until their departure in 1999 they were subjected to asylum-related outrages, or that upon their return they will be at such risk thereof. 4.8The State party refers to the claim that the complainant’s application for asylum was refused even though the opinion of 21 December 2000 does not exclude the possibility that the complainant suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. The State party argues (as is set out in the preceding paragraph) that upon examination the complainant was found to suffer from a substantial personality change which could be the result of post-traumatic stress disorder, but is most likely diagnosed as paranoid psychosis. Thus, the State party maintains that there is no medical information proving that the complainant was subjected to torture. 4.9According to the State party, in requesting the Refugee Board to reopen his case, the complainant stated, inter alia, that he disagreed with the opinion of 21 December 2000, as he claimed that his mental condition is attributable to the effects of torture, and that the examination made by doctors prior to preparing the opinion was not sufficiently thorough. The State party notes that in refusing to reopen his case on 27 June 2002, the Refugee Board found that no new information had come to light which would provide a basis for assuming that the opinion of 21 December 2000 was defective.c In the State party’s view, the simple fact that the complainant disagrees with the conclusion of the opinion does not alter this. 4.10In setting aside the complainant’s allegations of having been previously tortured, the Refugee Board did not consider the complainant’s statement credible or substantiated. The same is said to be true of the complainant’s wife’s statement, in respect of which the Board found that despite repeated questioning she was only able to explain about the reason for the final decision on the departure in general terms. The State party also refers to the fact that several instances concerning statements of the complainant and his wife were not very convincing. By way of example, the State party refers to a memorandum of 26 November 2001 from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is mentioned in the Refugee Board decision. The Ministry had been requested to comment on the authenticity of the transcript of a judgement dated January 1996, allegedly against the complainant. Although it could not establish whether the judgement was authentic, it found that certain issues in the transcript were extraordinary. There was no reference to the underlying criminal provisions, the punishment imposed was meted out in parts of a year as opposed to whole years, which is unusual, and the punishment imposed was imprisonment and not work camp, which would have been normal in a case like this one. The State party also refers to the complainant’s allegation, in the context of his request to the Board to reconsider his case, that his wife had been subjected to torture and that she had flashbacks during the Board hearing as one of the Board members reminded her of a Russian police officer. The Board noted that the complainant’s wife did not appear to the board as a person “in shock” during the hearing and that this argument could not lead to a reversal of its decision. 4.11The State party refers to the Refugee Board’s statement that it would not entirely reject the complainant’s statement to the effect that the complainant had carried out activities for the Citizens’ Union, that he had certain conflicts with the authorities, and that his home had been searched. However, the State party argues that it follows from the practice of the Committee that “a risk of being detained as such is not sufficient to trigger the protection of article 3 of the Convention”.d