A recent tribunal found it was untenable that a Sri Lankan police officer was unknowingly involved in widespread ‘systematic’ attacks on Tamils, that constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka.

The UK’s Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Judges Lane and Pitt, arrived at these conclusions whilst dealing with an asylum appellant.

The Sri Lankan appellant, a former police officer, named Mr AS for anonymity purposes, was in fear of  persecution from the Sri Lankan government, who he claimed, suspected him of disclosing information regarding the torture and murder of Tamil suspects.

Dismissing the appeal, the tribunal determined that the appellant was excluded from the Refugee Convention. The tribunal concluded that the appellant  would have been aware of the systematic abuse committed against the Tamils during his service, thereby holding him directly involved or complicit in human rights violations carried out by the Sri Lankan government against the ethnic Tamil population.

The Upper Tribunal findings on the 'systemic' nature of police oppression echo conclusions of  a report ‘Sri Lanka’s White Vans’, released by Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) in 2012. The report documented the systemic nature of white-van abductions whilst tracing culpability back to the highest levels of the Sri Lankan state.

Summarising the findings of the Sri Lanka's White Vans report, Jan Jananayagam from TAG, said,

"Our report showed that the state is either directly a systematic perpetrator of abductions of Tamils followed by torture and/or extrajudicial killings or that it 'outsources' this activity to paramilitary groups that it co-ordinates. We showed that the Sri Lankan judiciary is complicit as well as the police, military and prison authorities - with abductees being seamlessly transferred between unofficial black sites and official holding locations."

Key findings from the Upper Tribunal case are reproduced below,

“During the period of the appellant’s service in the special unit that the actions of Sri Lankan authorities were well-characterised as ‘a widespread and systematic attack’ directed at the civilian population, in particular those of Tamil ethnicity.”

“We were satisfied that there was ample evidence of a “widespread” and “systemic” attack conducted by the Sri Lankan authorities, the AI and EU reports referring in terms to the abuse of the Tamil population being part of a government strategy.”

“It is our view that the country evidence shows overwhelmingly that the Sri Lankan authorities were specifically attacking the Tamil population, the police force being agents in that attack, certainly by the way of torture and kidnapping.”

“The US state Department refers to ‘numerous reports that the army, police, and pro-government paramilitary groups participated in armed attacks against civilians and practiced torture, kidnapping, hostage-taking, and extortion with impunity” and to the use of torture by police to extract confessions being ‘endemic’.

"We found that for the reasons set out above the respondent has shown that there are serious reasons for considering that as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population, with knowledge of the attack, the appellant aided and abetted war crimes and crimes against humanity."

“The appellant does not dispute that those he arrested and handed over were subsequently killed or tortured but maintains that he did not know this until May 2009. It is not credible where we have found that he knew of the wider abuses taking place that he would not have known that those he arrested would be subject to the same.”

 “We did not find it credible that, if only from his (Mr AS) service in the police from 2003 to 2009, that the appellant did not know of the routine serious abuse of Tamils.”