Decision; Subjects: SWITZERLAND, TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL TREATMENT; [CAT: UNO-Antifolterkonvention, Übereinkommen gegen Folter; Convention contre la torture; Convenzione contro la tortura]
Volltext (verifizierbarer Originaltext)
GE.25-21030 (E) 150126 150126
Committee against Torture
Decision adopted by the Committee under article 22 of the
Convention, concerning communication No. 1091/2021*, **
Communication submitted by:
T.J. (represented by AsyLex)
Alleged victim:
The complainant
State Party:
Switzerland
Date of complaint:
17 September 2021 (initial submission)
Document references:
Decision taken pursuant to rules 114 and 115 of
the Committee’s rules of procedure, transmitted
to the State Party on 23 September 2021 (not
issued in document form)
Date of adoption of decision:
17 November 2025
Subject matter:
Deportation to Sri Lanka
Procedural issue:
Level of substantiation of claims
Substantive issue:
Risk to life or risk of torture or other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,
if deported to country of origin
(non-refoulement)
Articles of the Convention:
3 and 14
1.1
The complainant is T.J., a national of Sri Lanka born in 1987. He applied for asylum
in the State Party, but his application was rejected. He is facing deportation to Sri Lanka and
submits that his deportation would constitute a violation by the State Party of article 3 of the
Convention. The State Party made the declaration provided for in article 22 (1) of the
Convention on 2 December 1986. The complainant is represented by counsel.
1.2
On 23 September 2021, pursuant to rule 114 of its rules of procedure, the Committee,
acting through its Rapporteur on new complaints and interim measures, requested the State
Party not to deport the complainant to Sri Lanka while the communication was being
considered by the Committee.
1.3
On 30 September 2021, the State Party informed the Committee that, in accordance
with its established procedure, the State Secretariat for Migration had requested the
competent authority to refrain from taking any steps to deport the complainant, so that he
could be assured of remaining in Switzerland pending the consideration of his complaint by
the Committee.
* Adopted by the Committee at its eighty-third session (10–28 November 2025).
** The following members of the Committee participated in the examination of the communication:
Todd Buchwald, Jorge Contesse, Claude Heller, Erdogan Iscan, Peter Vedel Kessing, Liu Huawen,
Maeda Naoko, Ana Racu and Abderrazak Rouwane.
United Nations
CAT/C/83/D/1091/2021
Convention against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment
Distr.: General
16 January 2026
Original: English
CAT/C/83/D/1091/2021
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Factual background
2.1
The complainant is of Tamil ethnicity. In October 2006, he was forcibly recruited by
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He was assigned to be a war correspondent
and was forced to report on battle sites. In August 2007, he was injured by a bomb fragment.
A month later, he escaped, but LTTE captured him again after a few weeks.1 As punishment
for his desertion, he was made to serve on the front line for a month. He escaped again in
April 2008.2 As the war worsened, the family fled, and he disguised himself to avoid being
found.3 His father died in an attack on 10 April 2009. The rest of the family fled again, and
he surrendered to the army on 21 April 2009.
2.2
After his surrender, the complainant was identified as an LTTE member. In May 2009,
he was detained in a rehabilitation camp, where he remained for almost two years.4 Given his
work as a war correspondent, he was questioned by members of the Criminal Investigation
Department, who beat and tortured him. On 25 December 2010, he was released from the
camp with the help of a parliamentarian and because bribes were paid. As the authorities
feared that LTTE would strike back, the complainant was still subjected to regular
harassment, monthly interrogations by the Criminal Investigation Department, weekly
signature requirements and beatings by the authorities. Every time a police officer was shot
in his area, he was arrested as a suspect. Thus, he lived in constant fear of detention and
torture.
2.3
In August 2012, with the help of a smuggler, the complainant left Sri Lanka for
Malaysia, where he applied for asylum.5 In 2014, as the situation appeared to have eased, he
withdrew his asylum application and returned to Sri Lanka. Upon arrival, he was summoned
by the Criminal Investigation Department, questioned and again subjected to a weekly
signature requirement. He was placed under house arrest. Two months later, suspecting that
he had contacted the LTTE diaspora in Malaysia, the authorities detained him in Colombo.
There, he was questioned about his departure and re-entry, severely beaten, and burned with
cigarettes. He was released after a month but was still subjected to a weekly signature
requirement and monthly interrogations, including, on five occasions, at the special
interrogation unit of the main office of the Criminal Investigation Department in Colombo.
There, he was told he would be beaten if he did not cooperate. Twice, the interrogations lasted
for several days, and they left him with enormous fear. Two days after one of his LTTE
supervisors had been arrested, officers went to the complainant’s house, but he was not there.
Fearing that his supervisor had shared information about him, he left Sri Lanka on 30 August
2016, with the help of a smuggler.
2.4
The complainant arrived in Switzerland on 1 September 2016 and applied for asylum
the following day. He was interviewed by the State Secretariat for Migration on 13 September
2016 and on 14 December 2018. On 27 January 2020, the State Secretariat rejected his
application and ordered his return. It found inconsistencies in the complainant’s statements.
For example, in one interview he had declared that he had been involved with LTTE until
September 2007, while in the other interview he had mentioned different dates: August 2007,
April 2007 and August 2008. The same chronological inconsistencies were noted regarding
the injuries to his legs. The State Secretariat then noted that the document produced by the
complainant as evidence of having been summoned to appear at the police station in Colombo
after he had returned from Malaysia was handwritten, which was unusual, and did not contain
any security elements, except for a wet stamp. In addition, the complainant’s statements on
the interrogation in Colombo and the subsequent one-month detention were extremely
superficial. The State Secretariat expressed astonishment that the complainant had not been
able to give any real information about the head office in Colombo, where he had been five
1 No details were provided.
2 No details were provided.
3 No details were provided.
4 The complainant provides a detention attestation issued by the International Committee of the Red
Cross on 26 January 2011, which mentions that the complainant was first visited by the delegates on
13 May 2009, then on 17 June 2009, and that he was released, according to the authorities, on
25 December 2010.
5 No details were provided.
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or six times. The reasons given by the complainant as to why he had been summoned were
hypothetical,6 which reinforced the impression of a fabricated fact.
2.5
Regarding an observation of the representative of the mutual aid organization present
at the complainant’s hearing of 14 December 2018, according to which the hearing was being
held under “time pressure”, the State Secretariat noted that the observation had not been an
official objection. The representative had stated that she had no further questions. She had
also given no indication beforehand, during the checking of the minutes phase, that there had
been any urgent questions outstanding at the hearing. The State Secretariat also noted that at
the second hearing, the complainant had no longer raised the arguments that he had
mentioned in the first interview as the reason for his asylum application. For example, the
complainant had initially stated that he had been detained in Colombo for a month after his
return in 2015 and that he had been burned with cigarettes. In the second hearing, on the other
hand, those two submissions remained completely unmentioned initially, even when
questions were asked about them. The complainant eventually responded that he had been
imprisoned in Colombo for two or even three months, which represented a third version of
the same allegation. Accordingly, those statements were not credible for the State Secretariat,
which did not believe the claims that the complainant had been persecuted after his return
from Malaysia.
2.6
The State Secretariat pointed out that the complainant’s voluntary return to Sri Lanka
from Malaysia in 2014 and his previous withdrawal of his application for asylum in Malaysia
were indications that his return was apparently no longer associated with any further
disadvantages7 on the part of the Sri Lankan authorities. The evidence submitted, which
referred to his time at a rehabilitation camp, did not paint a different picture. As to two
additional recent handwritten documents,8 the State Secretariat found that they obviously did
not display the characteristics of an official, authentic police summons (police information
form). Moreover, and more importantly, it noted that the complainant had stayed in Sri Lanka
for at least one year, or longer – depending on the version – after the alleged detention at the
Criminal Investigation Department, without anything having happened. The State Secretariat
therefore assumed that the temporal and factual causal connections between the alleged
persecution and both his flight to Malaysia and his subsequent departure in 2016 (following
his return to Sri Lanka in 2014) no longer existed.
2.7
Lastly, the State Secretariat analysed the risk factors for the complainant’s return to
Sri Lanka in line with the case law of the Federal Administrative Court.9 It held that, after
release from rehabilitation detention, the complainant had not credibly demonstrated that he
had been the victim of persecution of an asylum-relevant nature. Any risk factors that had
existed at the time of the complainant’s departure were therefore not sufficient to trigger any
interest in persecution on the part of the Sri Lankan authorities. The State Secretariat also did
not find any concrete indication that that had changed since the complainant had left Sri
Lanka. It took note of the complainant’s declaration that he was not receiving any medical
treatment.
2.8
The complainant appealed, alleging that, since his departure from Sri Lanka, the
authorities had returned to his family’s home to look for him. His mother had initially
withheld from him that a summons to appear in court on 8 September 2016 had been issued.
A second summons had arrived on 20 January 2020. The complainant also submitted that he
had participated in “martyrs’ memorial days” in Switzerland and had been approached by an
LTTE organization in Switzerland to become a member.
2.9
On 6 April 2021, the Federal Administrative Court dismissed the appeal. It concurred
with the State Secretariat that the surveillance measures taken against the complainant
between his time in the rehabilitation camp and his departure for Malaysia were insufficiently
connected. The court also found that the complainant had been unable to describe the events
6 According to the interview of 14 December 2018: “If something happened in our neighbourhood,
I was always summoned.”
7 In Swiss law, serious disadvantages in the context of asylum include a threat to life, physical integrity
or freedom as well as measures that exert intolerable psychological pressure (Act on Asylum, art. 3).
8 Summonses from June 2015, allegedly issued by the Criminal Investigation Department.
9 Federal Administrative Court, Case No. E-1866/2015, Judgment, 15 July 2016.
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after 2014 in a sufficiently specific manner and that his account had contained
inconsistencies. It noted that the complainant had initially declared that his detention had
lasted for one month and that he had been burned with cigarettes, while in the subsequent
hearing, he had not mentioned those elements. When his attention was drawn to that
contradiction, the complainant had declared that he had been detained for three months. His
statements concerning the alleged interviews at the main office of the Criminal Investigation
Department had been extremely superficial and he had not even been able to explain where
the Department’s main office in Colombo was located, although he had allegedly been there
five or six times. The court thus considered that the complainant had not experienced the
events himself.
2.10
The Federal Administrative Court noted the complainant’s contradictory statements
in relation to the duration of his activities for LTTE and considered that those could not be
described as entirely convincing. While the court did not contest his detention in the
rehabilitation camp and – unlike the State Secretariat – did not question his past connections
to LTTE, it found that his low rank and the short length of his work for LTTE did not
constitute strong risk factors. Similarly, his scars from cigarette burns were found to be a
weak risk factor. The complainant did not credibly show that he had been subjected to
asylum-related disadvantages, or threatened with such disadvantages, after his time at the
rehabilitation camp. The court then deemed that his activities in exile did not reach the
threshold of an objectively justified fear of disadvantages within the meaning of asylum law
because he had not demonstrated that he had taken a position other than that of a follower of
a demonstration.
2.11
The court also did not accept the complainant’s allegation that legal proceedings had
been opened against him in Sri Lanka after he had left the country in August 2016, in
connection with his LTTE activities. It noted that the complainant first raised the allegation
in appeal, although the first summons to appear as a witness was dated 2 September 2016.
The court did not accept the complainant’s explanation that his mother had not revealed that
information in order not to worry him. It also seemed implausible that a warrant for the
complainant’s arrest had been issued only on 20 January 2020, that is, four and a half years
after his departure from the country, if he had truly been summoned in September 2016.
Regardless, the court noted that the documents produced – witness summonses and the arrest
warrant – contained various inconsistencies. For example, in the second witness summons of
6 January 2020, the ordering authority (“Magistrate’s Court”) did not match the reason for
the summons (failure to appear before the “H/C”, i.e. “High Court”). Against that
background, it was also questionable why the first witness summons of 2 September 2016
had been issued by the Magistrate’s Court. Furthermore, the arrest warrant of 20 January
2020 allegedly originated from the “Kilinochchi High Court”, although to the knowledge of
the court in Kilinochchi, no such high court existed.10 The court therefore concluded that the
documents in question were not authentic. With regard to the psychological problems
invoked for the first time, the court noted, on the one hand, that medical or psychotherapeutic
treatment had not been proved necessary, since no medical documents had been produced in
that regard, and on the other, that both inpatient and outpatient mental healthcare options
were available in Sri Lanka.
2.12
As to his medical situation, the complainant alleges that he has fainted several times,
for unknown reasons, since he began living in Switzerland. He is forgetful and sometimes
does not realize what is he doing, owing to amnesia resulting from having been poisoned in
Sri Lanka. He underwent an MRI examination, but was never given a follow-up appointment.
He also screams during the night, but he has not received any treatment for this other than
antidepressant medication.11
10 Federal Administrative Court, Case No. E-3160/2020, Judgment, 18 February 2021, para. 6.5.3.
11 A medical certificate dated 13 September 2021 states that the complainant is basically a healthy man,
but that he is certainly traumatized by his time in detention in Sri Lanka and now suffers from great
fear of having to experience such treatment again.
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Complaint
3.1
The complainant submits that, if returned to Sri Lanka, he would face a real risk of
being tortured and suffering cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, in
violation of article 3 of the Convention. He claims that the State Party’s authorities have
failed to make an individualized assessment of his asylum application, in breach of
article 3 (2) of the Convention, because they dismissed his arguments as implausible, despite
the observation made at the asylum interview regarding the lack of time to address his
detention conditions. He declares that a medical report highlights that he suffers from
amnesia resulting from a previous poisoning, which explains the discrepancies in his
statements.12 Moreover, the summonses submitted on appeal were disregarded by the Federal
Administrative Court, which failed to verify their authenticity.
3.2
The complainant considers that the Federal Administrative Court examined the
individual risk factors insufficiently. Due consideration should have been given to his special
need for protection as a former victim of torture with visible scars, a member of the Tamil
minority and a former LTTE member who is politically active in exile. Instead, the court
relied on generalized arguments and reports of the situation in Sri Lanka. He submits that
while article 14 (1) of the Convention provides for victim rehabilitation rights, the State Party
has denied him adequate treatment in Switzerland, thus violating its obligation in addition to
issuing his deportation order.
State Party’s observations on the merits
4.1
On 27 August 2024, the State Party submitted its observations. As to the
complainant’s allegation that he was unable, during the interviews, to provide detailed,
consistent and complete information on his reasons for seeking asylum due to amnesia, the
State Party observes that the amnesia was not confirmed in the medical report dated
13 September 2021 or the medical report dated 8 January 2019. The State Party considers
that memory lapses cannot explain the divergent statements. The complainant’s objection
referring to the observation of the representative of the mutual aid organization, according to
which he had been unable to describe his conditions of detention in detail during the hearing
owing to lack of time, is also irrelevant for the State Party, especially since the representative
did not note this circumstance as an objection to the approval of the minutes, but only as an
observation.
4.2
The State Party then reiterates the arguments made by the Swiss asylum authorities
regarding the numerous and significant factual inconsistencies in the complainant’s
statements. It acknowledges that the human rights situation in Sri Lanka is worrying in many
respects, but points out that the Federal Administrative Court has already thoroughly
examined that situation and the risk of torture in the event of return in a reference judgment,13
according to which not all returnees with a real or supposed, present or past link to LTTE
necessarily risk persecution. Only persons accused of rekindling ethnic conflict face such a
risk. The same applies to Sri Lankan nationals who have engaged in political activities in
exile. In the present case, the complainant has failed to plausibly argue that he has attracted
the attention of the Sri Lankan authorities.
4.3
The State Party further notes that while the complainant was a member of LTTE, his
activities were of minor importance and lasted for only a short period (less than one year).
Furthermore, he was placed in detention for rehabilitation after the end of the war. The scars
on his buttocks and chest are also a low risk factor. His political activities in Switzerland
indicate that he is a mere follower of demonstrations. The State Party also notes that the
complainant’s departure for Malaysia and his return did not pose any problems. In addition,
he was able to leave the country without any particular difficulty, with his passport, through
Colombo airport. Thus, there is no reason to assume that he is on a stop list. There is therefore
no reason to believe that there is a present and real risk that he would be subjected to torture
if deported.
12 The complainant submits a medical report dated 8 January 2019.
13 Federal Administrative Court, Case No. E-1866/2015, Judgment, 15 July 2016.
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Complainant’s comments on the State Party’s observations on the merits
5.1
On 28 October 2024, the complainant submitted comments in which he contested the
State Party’s arguments.14 He notes that, in its observations, the State Party failed to mention
the torture suffered by the complainant during his first detention, in 2009/10. While he had
been closely monitored by the Criminal Investigation Department, the main reason for
seeking asylum in Malaysia was not that surveillance, but rather the fear of being detained
and tortured again.
5.2
The complainant recalls that, in his original submission, he invoked a violation of
article 14 (1) of the Convention because the State Party had failed to provide him with
adequate treatment, even though he was a victim of torture.
5.3
The complainant insists that his hearing before the State Secretariat for Migration
started 40 minutes late and that the representative of the mutual aid organization had noted
that the delay had created a stressful atmosphere for the complainant, who had felt pressured
and could not develop certain aspects of his story. Thus, he had not been able to provide
details on the main office of the Criminal Investigation Department in Colombo.
5.4
The complainant submits that even if it doubts the veracity of his claims, the State
Party has the obligation to provide a medical examination in order to be able to assess the
risk of torture upon return with full knowledge of his psychological situation.15 Such an
examination was never conducted at the initiative of the State Party. As to the inconsistencies
revealed by the Swiss authorities, the complainant deplores that they never took into account
the consequences his trauma would have when they assessed the credibility of his claims.16
Factual inconsistencies should not be held against him. The Swiss authorities refused to
consider the medical report of 8 January 2019 showing that he suffers from amnesia resulting
from poisoning during his detention in 2010. The complainant also points to the two-year
delay between the first and second hearings and submits that, as a victim of torture who
suffers from trauma, he cannot be expected to remember exactly what he said two years
previously without making any mistakes.
5.5
The complainant points out that the Sri Lankan authorities were immediately aware
of his return from Malaysia and contacted him only a few days after his arrival. This shows
that he was being monitored and was registered on a stop list. It is therefore extremely likely
that his participation in political activities in Switzerland is known by the Sri Lankan
authorities. Such political involvement is serious and amounts to a high risk factor. In its
response, the State Party did not take into account that the complainant had been approached
by an LTTE recruiter in Switzerland.
5.6
Lastly, the complainant refers to a recent United Nations report on the human rights
situation in Sri Lanka, in which OHCHR examined allegations of arbitrary detention, torture
and ill-treatment perpetrated by Sri Lankan security forces, and found a clear pattern of acts
against individuals of Tamil ethnicity believed to be previously involved or linked to LTTE.17
Issues and proceedings before the Committee
Consideration of admissibility
6.1
Before considering any complaint submitted in a communication, the Committee must
decide whether it is admissible under article 22 of the Convention. The Committee has
ascertained, as it is required to do under article 22 (5) (a) of the Convention, that the same
matter has not been and is not being examined under another procedure of international
investigation or settlement.
6.2
In accordance with article 22 (5) (b) of the Convention, the Committee shall not
consider any communication from an individual unless it has ascertained that the individual
14 He also submits a medical report dated 22 October 2024, which contains a diagnosis of depressive
mood with suicidal tendencies.
15 General comment No. 4 (2017), para. 41.
16 Ibid., para. 42.
17 A/HRC/57/19, para. 27.
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has exhausted all available domestic remedies. The Committee notes that, in the present case,
the State Party has not contested that the complainant has exhausted all available domestic
remedies. The Committee therefore finds that it is not precluded from considering the
communication under article 22 (5) (b) of the Convention.
6.3
The Committee considers that the complainant has not shown that the facts, as
presented by him, raise separate issues under article 14 of the Convention.18 In the absence
of further explanations, the Committee considers that that aspect of the communication is not
sufficiently substantiated.
6.4
As the Committee finds no further obstacles to admissibility, it declares admissible
the complaint submitted under article 3 of the Convention with respect to the risk of torture
or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that the complainant would
face if deported to his country of origin, and proceeds with its consideration of the merits.
Consideration of the merits
7.1
In accordance with article 22 (4) of the Convention, the Committee has considered
the communication in the light of all the information made available to it by the parties.
7.2
In the present case, the issue before the Committee is whether the return of the
complainant to Sri Lanka would constitute a violation of the State Party’s obligation under
article 3 of the Convention not to expel or to return (refouler) 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.
7.3
The Committee must evaluate whether there are substantial grounds for believing that
the complainant would be personally in danger of being subjected to torture upon return to
Sri Lanka. In assessing that risk, the Committee must take into account all relevant
considerations, pursuant to article 3 (2) of the Convention, including the existence of a
consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. However, the
Committee recalls that the aim of such determination is to establish whether the individual
concerned would be at a foreseeable, personal, present and real risk of being subjected to
torture in the country to which he or she would be returned. It follows that the existence of a
pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights in a country does not as such
constitute sufficient reason for determining that a particular person would be in danger of
being subjected to torture on return to that country; additional grounds must be adduced to
show that the individual concerned would be personally at risk. Moreover, although past
events may be of relevance, the principal question before the Committee is whether the
complainant would currently run a risk of torture if returned to Sri Lanka.19
7.4
The Committee refers to its general comment No. 4 (2017), according to which the
risk of torture must be assessed on grounds that go beyond mere theory or suspicion.
Although the risk does not have to be shown to be highly probable, the burden of proof
generally falls on the complainant, who must present an arguable case establishing that he or
she faces a foreseeable, real and personal risk (para. 38).20 The Committee recalls that, in
accordance with the same general comment, it gives considerable weight to findings of fact
made by organs of the State Party concerned, while, at the same time, it is not bound by such
findings and instead has the power, under article 22 (4) of the Convention, to make a free
assessment of the information available to it, taking into account all the circumstances
relevant to each case (para. 50).
7.5
In the present case, the Committee notes the complainant’s claims that he would be in
danger of facing treatment contrary to article 3 of the Convention if returned to Sri Lanka, as
he would risk torture and ill-treatment because of his past involvement with LTTE and his
political activity in Switzerland, particularly given the human rights situation in Sri Lanka
and his Tamil ethnicity. It also takes note of the complainant’s assertions that, when revealing
18 Harun v. Switzerland (CAT/C/65/D/758/2016), para. 8.7; and N.A. v. Switzerland
(CAT/C/79/D/1096/2021), para. 8.3.
19 N.K. v. Switzerland (CAT/C/77/D/989/2020), para. 7.3.
20 See, inter alia, Dadar v. Canada (CAT/C/35/D/258/2004), para. 8.4; and A.R. v. Netherlands
(CAT/C/31/D/203/2002), para. 7.3.
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inconsistencies in his statements, the Swiss authorities did not take into account his trauma
and his lack of time during the interview before the State Secretariat for Migration, and
refused to consider the medical report of 8 January 2019 showing that he suffers from
amnesia resulting from poisoning during his detention in 2010, which may explain his
conflicting declarations. The complainant also alleges that the summonses that he produced
in his appeal were disregarded by the Federal Administrative Court, which failed to verify
their authenticity.
7.6
The Committee then notes the State Party’s reference to the contradictions that the
asylum authorities had identified in the complainant’s account and their conclusion that the
complainant had failed to plausibly argue that upon return he would attract the attention of
the Sri Lankan authorities owing to his past links with LTTE. The Committee notes that the
Swiss authorities duly examined the complainant’s allegations in support of his request for
asylum but highlighted the inconsistencies therein, and expressed doubts as to their
credibility.
7.7
The Committee notes in particular that the Swiss authorities have not called into
question the credibility of the complainant’s claims regarding his past involvement with
LTTE or his detention for rehabilitation. They have, however, contested the credibility of his
claims that his activities for LTTE led to his persecution by the Sri Lankan authorities after
he returned from Malaysia, which was allegedly the direct cause of his flight from the
country. In that sense, the Committee notes that the Swiss authorities have examined the
evidence produced by the complainant: the State Secretariat for Migration found that the
summons from June 2015 was handwritten and did not contain any security elements and the
Federal Administrative Court found illogical that a summons to appear in court was dated
2 September 2016 but that an arrest warrant had been issued only on 20 January 2020, after
the complainant had left the country. The Committee also notes that the Federal
Administrative Court went further with its analysis of the two summonses and identified a
number of inconsistencies. The Committee observes that, although the complainant contests
this assessment, he has provided no evidence to challenge the specific arguments given by
the Swiss authorities for assigning a low probative value to the evidence that he had adduced
in support of his allegations. The Committee notes that these documents, supposedly issued
in another country, did not bear any security feature that could be checked by the Swiss
authorities.
7.8
As to the alleged time constraints during a hearing before the State Secretariat for
Migration, the Committee notes that according to the minutes, the hearing of 14 December
2018 started at 9.30 a.m. and ended at 1.55 p.m., with a 15-minute break. The complainant
certified that the minutes were complete and corresponded to his statements, which were
given freely. He does not invoke an impossibility to have provided written arguments before
the State Secretariat adopted its decision on 27 January 2020. The Committee therefore
considers that the complainant has not demonstrated that he was deprived of the possibility
to provide arguments in support of his request for asylum. As to the complainant’s allegation
that the medical report dated 8 January 2019 highlights that he suffers from amnesia resulting
from a previous poisoning and that this amnesia might explain the discrepancies in his
statements, the Committee notes that while amnesia, possibly caused toxically, is not
excluded in that report, the report does not state that the complainant suffered from amnesia
at the very moment of his declarations or that such amnesia would have exerted an influence
over the complainant’s statements before the asylum authorities.
7.9
The Committee notes that according to the Swiss authorities: the complainant did not
credibly show that he had been persecuted after rehabilitation; the complainant’s statements
concerning the alleged persecution after his return from Malaysia were deemed to be
extremely superficial; and the complainant was not able to explain where the main office of
the Criminal Investigation Department in Colombo was located, although he had allegedly
been there several times. As to his alleged political activity in Switzerland, the Committee
notes the argument of the Swiss authorities that the complainant had not demonstrated that
he had taken a position other than that of a participant in demonstrations.
7.10
With respect to the argument relating to the worsening of the human rights situation
in Sri Lanka, the Committee recalls that the occurrence of human rights violations in the
complainant’s country of origin is not, in itself, sufficient for it to conclude that the
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complainant is personally at risk of being tortured there. The Committee notes that the
complainant had ample opportunity to provide the State Secretariat for Migration and the
Federal Administrative Court with supporting evidence and more information about his
claims during the asylum proceedings. However, it cannot be concluded on the basis of the
evidence provided that the complainant would personally be at risk of torture or inhuman or
degrading treatment if he were returned to Sri Lanka. Even if it were to accept the claim that
the complainant had been subjected to acts of torture or ill-treatment in the past, as was
allegedly supported by his medical examinations, the Committee recalls that the question is
whether he remains, at present, at risk of torture in Sri Lanka in the event of his forcible return
there.21 The Committee also notes that, according to its jurisprudence, it is normally for the
complainant to present an arguable case.22
7.11
In the present case, the Committee is of the view that the complainant has not provided
credible information sufficient to demonstrate that the Sri Lankan authorities are currently
interested in him. In that regard, it notes that the complainant did not demonstrate before the
Swiss asylum authorities that he was currently wanted by the Sri Lankan authorities. The
complainant also did not demonstrate that his family was currently being persecuted owing
to his past activities.
8.
On the basis of the above, and in the light of the material before it, the Committee
considers that the complainant has not provided sufficient evidence to enable it to conclude
that his deportation to his country of origin would expose him to a foreseeable, personal,
present and real risk of being subjected to treatment contrary to article 3 of the Convention.
9.
The Committee, acting under article 22 (7) of the Convention, concludes that the
return of the complainant to Sri Lanka would not constitute a violation of article 3 of the
Convention by the State Party.
21 N.K. v. Switzerland, para. 7.10.
22 See, for example, N.B-M. v. Switzerland (CAT/C/47/D/347/2008), para. 9.9; C.A.R.M. et al. v.
Canada (CAT/C/38/D/298/2006), para. 8.10; and M.A.K. v. Germany (CAT/C/32/D/214/2002),
para. 13.5.