1.2On 11 September 2002, the Committee forwarded the complaint to the State party for comments and requested, under rule 108, paragraph 1, of the Committee’s rules of procedure, not to extradite the complainant to Turkey while his complaint was under consideration by the Committee. The Committee indicated, however, that this request could be reviewed in the light of observations provided by the State party on the admissibility or on the merits. The State party acceded to this request. 1.3On 11 November 2002, the State party submitted its observations on the admissibility of the complaint together with a motion asking the Committee to withdraw its request for interim measures, pursuant to rule 108, paragraph 7, of the Committee’s rules of procedure. In his comments, dated 23 December 2002, on the State party’s observations on admissibility, counsel asked the Committee to maintain its request for interim measures until a final decision on the complaint has been taken. On 4 April 2002, the Committee, through its Rapporteur on new communications and interim measures, decided not to withdraw its request for interim measures. The facts as submitted by the complainant 2.1The complainant arrived in Germany in December 1990 and claimed political asylum on 21 January 1991, stating that he had been arrested for a week in 1989 and tortured by the police in Mazgirt because of his objection to the conduct of superiors during military service. As a PKK sympathizer, he was being persecuted and his life was in danger in Turkey. On 20 August 1991, the Federal Agency for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees (Bundesamt für die Anerkennung ausländischer Flüchtlinge) rejected the complainant’s application on the basis of inconsistencies in his counts. 2.2The complainant appealed the decision of the Federal Agency before the Wiesbaden Administrative Court which dismissed the appeal on 7 September 1999. On 17 April 2001, the Higher Administrative Court of Hessen refused leave to appeal from that judgement. 2.3On 7 December 2001, the City of Hanau issued an expulsion order against the complainant, together with a notification of imminent deportation. The expulsion was based on the fact that the complainant had been sentenced by penal order, dated 16 January 1995, of the District Court of Groβ-Gerau to a suspended prison term of four months for participation in a highway blockade organized by PKK sympathizers in March 1994. 2.4On 17 January 2001, the complainant applied to the Federal Agency to reopen proceedings in his case, arguing that he had been trained by the PKK in a camp in the Netherlands in 1994, with a view to joining the PKK’s armed forces in south-east Turkey, a duty from which he had been exempted at his subsequent request. He further claimed that the Turkish authorities knew about his PKK activities and, in particular, his participation in the highway blockade, on the basis of his conviction for joint coercion of road traffic. 2.5By decision of 6 February 2002, the Federal Agency rejected the application to reopen asylum proceedings, stating that the complainant could have raised these fresh arguments in the initial proceedings, and that his submissions lacked credibility. On 26 February 2002, the complainant appealed this decision before the Frankfurt Administrative Court, where proceedings were still pending in this regard at the time of the initial submission of the complaint. 2.6The complainant’s application for provisional court relief against his deportation to Turkey was rejected by the Frankfurt Administrative Court on 21 March 2002, essentially based on grounds identical to those of the Federal Agency. 2.7On 16 April 2002, an informational hearing of the complainant was held at the Federal Agency, during which the complainant stated that, prior to his training at the Dutch PKK camp, he had been introduced to the public of the Kurdish Halim-Dener-Festival, celebrated in September 1994 in the Netherlands, as part of a group of 25 “guerrilla candidates”. He had not raised the issue during initial asylum proceedings since he feared punishment for PKK membership (the PKK is illegal under German law). 2.8The complainant’s application to reconsider its decision denying provisional court relief was rejected by the Frankfurt Administrative Court on 18 June 2002. The court reiterated that the late submission, as well as various details in the description of his alleged PKK activities, undermined the complainant’s credibility. Thus, it was considered questionable whether the PKK would publicly present its guerrilla candidates, knowing that the Turkish secret service observed events such as the Halim-Dener-Festival. Moreover, following political and ideological training in Europe, PKK members were generally obliged to undergo immediate military training in south-east Turkey. 2.9On 22 July 2002, the complainant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court against the decisions of the Frankfurt Administrative Court of 21 March and 18 June 2002, claiming violations of his constitutionally protected rights to life and physical integrity, equality before the law as well as his right to be heard before the courts. In addition, he filed an urgent application for an interim decision granting protection from deportation for the duration of the proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court. By decision of 30 August 2002 of a panel of three judges, the Federal Constitutional Court dismissed the complaint as well as the urgent application, on the basis that “the complainant solely objects to the assessment of facts and evidence by the lower courts without specifying any violation of his basic rights or rights equivalent to basic rights”. The complaint 3.1The complainant claims that substantial grounds exist for believing that he would be at a personal risk of being subjected to torture in Turkey, and that Germany would, therefore, be violating article 3 of the Convention if he were returned to Turkey. In support of his claim, he submits that the Committee has found the practice of torture to be systematic in Turkey. 3.2The complainant argues that the Federal Agency and the German courts overemphasized the inconsistencies in his statements during the initial asylum proceedings, which were not in substance related to his subsequent claim to reopen proceedings on the basis of new information. He admits his failure to mention his PKK activities during initial proceedings. However, he could have reasonably