The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) has expressed concern over the evidence of torture by Sri Lanka’s security forces working in cooperation with the Australian Federal Police (AFP), reports Colombo Mirror.
An investigation by ABC news, found that two former asylum seekers that were deported form Australia in 2009 were abused by members of Sri Lanka’s Central Investigation Department (CID) in the presence of an Australian Federal Police officer in Sri Lanka.
The victims’ lawyer, Lakshan Dias, said that CID officers beat men with wooden planks and threatened to rape their family members.
One of the victims, aged 31, Sumith Mendis, told reporters,
“I was tortured. I was unable to pass urine for two days. I had unbearable pain in my body.”
The AFP confirmed that an officer was in the building at CID building at the time of the event but denies that it witnessed the abuse.
Speaking to ABC news, an AFP spokesperson said,
“The AFP can confirm records indicate an AFP officer was present in the building on th day the offence was alleged to occur. At no stage did the AFP officer witness any mistreatment by CID officers of any persons held in custody.”
The two victims who are both Sinhalese, claim to have been persecuted for supporting the former Sri Lankan war general Sarath Fonseka.
The most recent case comes, as hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers, partake in mass agitation in an Australian detention centre outside Sydney.
One Tamil man in the Villawood detention centre describing being tortured by CID officers in 2006, said,
“After that, whenever I went to the toilet, I thought I could see my intestines coming out of me.”
Sri Lanka has been widely criticised for the torture of civilians with the majority of victims being Tamil.
Sri Lanka's systematic rape of Tamil detainees – HRW (26 Feb 2013)