A suspected terrorist who was questioned regarding a terror attack which left 269 people dead is seeking asylum in the UK. Arrested over alleged involvement in the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, the unnamed asylum seeker left the country in 2022 on bail.
He was granted anonymity, following his arrest, after an attack that saw suicide bombers targeting a string of luxury hotels and churches. The unnamed man came to the UK in September 2022, before claiming asylum a month later.
Speaking to an immigration tribunal, he said that police officers had been to his family home, and that he “fears prosecution” should he return to his home country.
It is reportedly understood that he denied the allegations levelled against him.
An earlier asylum claim for both himself and his wife was rejected by the Home Office; however, he won an appeal to challenge the decision at an upper immigration tribunal.
It means his case will now be reheard.
Just last week, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced significant reforms to the asylum system, which could make refugee status temporary, and grant ministers powers to send migrants back to their home country if that country was deemed safe.
Ms Mahmood is also reforming the way immigration appeals are handled, by replacing judges with adjudicators and restricting migrants and foreign offenders’ ability to exploit human rights laws so they can fight their deportations.
38 foreign tourists were killed in the 2019 Easter Sunday Bombings.
Several Britons were among them, including Anita Nicholson, 42, and her children, Alexander, 14 and Annabel, 11. They died in an explosion which took place at the Shangri-La Hotel.
IT director, Lorraine Campbell, and a retired firefighter, Bill Harrop and his wife, Dr Sally Bradley, also died in a blast at a separate hotel, the Cinnamon Grand.
Eight suicide bombers were involved, and it is believed that they were associated with an Islamist militant group named National Thowheeth Jama’ath.
An upper tribunal judgment said: “[The Sri Lankan] had applied for protection on his own behalf and on behalf of his wife. He says that on Jan 5 2022 he was arrested and questioned in connection with the Easter bombings, which took place in Sri Lanka on April 21 2019.
“He says that he was released only on the payment of a substantial bribe and was subject to reporting conditions. He left Sri Lanka for the United Kingdom on Sept 2 2022 and an arrest warrant was issued thereafter on Sept 15 2022.
“He says that the police have attended his family home in Sri Lanka, and he fears persecution if returned to Sri Lanka,” reports the Telegraph.
They heard that his initial case had been dismissed by the first-tier tribunal service.
The Sri Lankan man argued that the tribunal had made mistakes. He argued the judge had been “biased” and that the “arrest warrant was not issued until after he left Sri Lanka, which the judge failed to appreciate”.
Claire Burns, the deputy upper tribunal judge, found that the previous hearing had made a number of errors, which included that it had been missed that the man had been released on bail following an arrest warrant. Judge Burns denied that any previous judges were “highly prejudiced” in their approach.
The facts of the case will be reheard at the first-tier tribunal at a later date.
Judge Burns concluded: “I find there will need to be a complete rehearing wherein the judge will make findings about the credibility of [his] account and given the nature and extent of the fact finding, the appeal should therefore be remitted to the first-tier tribunal.
“The judge erred in law in his analysis of the documentary evidence as set out above, and so for that reason the decision must be set aside.”
