COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
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SRI LANKA 7 MARCH <strong>2012</strong><br />
―The first returnee was allowed to proceed at 1320hrs. Representatives from the<br />
International Organization for Migration (IOM) spoke individually to each returnee to<br />
hand over a travel grant in Sri Lankan Rupees equivalent to £50, to enable the returnee<br />
to have the means to travel to their onward address anywhere in Sri Lanka, and for<br />
overnight accommodation where required. Each returnee provided contact details to<br />
IOM.‖<br />
25.39 The BHC letter of 3 October 2011 went on to add that:<br />
―I was made aware by DIE that one of the first returnees processed by them had been<br />
identified as being the subject of an outstanding criminal arrest warrant. I was duly<br />
provided with a copy of the warrant which had been issued by Kalmunai High Court<br />
following the returnees‘ non-appearance at an earlier court hearing. DIE told me that he<br />
would go through the arrival procedures the same as all of the other returnees in the<br />
group, but then a uniformed police officer would arrest him. I was subsequently<br />
informed that the arrest had taken place and I was introduced to the uniformed police<br />
sergeant from Negombo police station who had made the arrest. I was told that the<br />
returnee would remain in Negombo police station, probably overnight, and then officers<br />
from Kalmunai would collect him and place him before Kalmunai High Court.‖<br />
25.40 The Freedom from Torture, report Out of the Silence: New Evidence of Ongoing Torture<br />
in Sri Lanka 528 (FFT <strong>Report</strong>), released on 7 November 2011, provided information<br />
―Through the detailed examination of evidence of torture which took place between May<br />
2009 and early 2011, as documented in the case sample of 35 completed medico-legal<br />
reports [of Sri Lankan asylum seekers in the <strong>UK</strong>]‖ and should be consulted in<br />
conjunction with the <strong>UK</strong> <strong>Border</strong> <strong>Agency</strong> Country of Origin Information (<strong>COI</strong>) Bulletin:<br />
Recent reports on Torture and ill-treatment, published on 30 November 2011 529 and the<br />
section on Torture. The FFT <strong>Report</strong> reported in its introduction the account of a Sri<br />
Lankan man who had returned to the country from the <strong>UK</strong> and was reportedly subject to<br />
ill-treatment:<br />
―‘After I arrived in Sri Lanka d tried to leave the airport, two men stopped me, asked for<br />
my passport and asked me to come with them. They showed me their IDs – two people<br />
from CID [Criminal Investigation Department]. They took me out of a different entrance<br />
and pulled me inside a van. They started to ask questions about why I had come back<br />
to Sri Lanka – saying that I had escaped the first time but not this time. They tied my<br />
hands and legs and kicked me very badly.‖<br />
―I was taken to a building. They asked questions like „why have you come back again?,<br />
‗what did you do in the <strong>UK</strong>?‘, ‗where is your brother?‘ [an LTTE member]. I said I had no<br />
contact with him. They tortured me inside the room by removing my clothes and hitting<br />
me with burning irons. I was feeling a burning sensation all over my body. They kept me<br />
528<br />
Freedom from Torture, Out of the Silence: New Evidence of Ongoing torture in Sri Lanka, 7<br />
November 2011<br />
http://www.freedomfromtorture.org/sites/default/files/documents/Sri%20Lanka%20Ongoing%20Torture_<br />
Freedom%20from%20Torture_Final%20Nov_07_2011.pdf , date accessed 13 January <strong>2012</strong>, introduction<br />
529<br />
<strong>UK</strong> <strong>Border</strong> <strong>Agency</strong>, Country of Origin Information (<strong>COI</strong>) Bulletin: Recent reports on Torture and illtreatment,<br />
30 November 2011<br />
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/srilanka12/bulletin-<br />
11111.pdf?view=Binary date accessed 13 January <strong>2012</strong><br />
206 The main text of this <strong>COI</strong> <strong>Report</strong> contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February <strong>2012</strong>.<br />
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section<br />
to 2 <strong>March</strong> <strong>2012</strong>.