Canberra, Dec 14 (IANS): A UN committee against torture has advised the Australian government not to deport a Sri Lankan man, fearing he might be tortured upon return, the media reported on Thursday.
The Geneva-based committee of 10 human rights experts has formally requested Australia not to return the man to Colombo, reports the Guardian.
The man was told on December 6 by the Department of Immigration to prepare to be deported from Australia. He faces arrest in Sri Lanka for his alleged links to the now vanquished Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
His arrest warrant states he faces charges of "assisting anti-government activities and supporting and assisting a terrorist organisation".
The Tamil Tigers were ultimately defeated in 2009 after 26 years of civil war.
The asylum seeker, an ethnic Tamil, went through Australia's controversial "fast-track" refugee status determination process and was found to not meet the criteria for refugee status.
Under the fast-track system, no additional information can be brought after an initial protection application.
He did not present the arrest warrant in the first instance, later explaining he did not understand the Australian justice system and feared he would "get in trouble" because of it, reports the Guardian.
Having failed to produce the warrant, his protection claim was dismissed as not credible, and the Immigration Assessment Authority, which reviewed his case, chose not to consider the document after being presented with it.
In July, the UN's special rapporteur Ben Emmerson visited Sri Lanka and reported that "the use of torture, has been, and remains, endemic and routine, for those arrested and detained on national security grounds.
"Entire communities have been stigmatised and targeted for harassment and arbitrary arrest and detention, and any person suspected of association, however indirect, with the LTTE remains at immediate risk of detention and torture," Emmerson wrote.
A spokesperson from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection told the Guardian that people with no lawful basis to remain in Australia were expected to return home.
"Australia does not remove people to Sri Lanka who engage Australia's non-refoulement obligations. Australia takes its non-refoulement obligations seriously, including those under the convention against torture."