Sri Lankan Youth deported from Australia unfold his story

A Sri Lankan youth named Dayan Antony who returned to Sri Lanka last morning from Australia after he was refused asylum and deported to Sri Lanka, told the media at a media briefing arranged by the Government Information Department in Colombo that he was not a member of LTTE, but had pretended to be in order to get to Australia.

“I am not a member of the LTTE; but the agent who sent me to Australia on a forged visa told me to pretend that I was one and to tell everyone so,” he said, hours before his release from the custody of the Sri Lanka Police.

Soon after his arrival in Sri Lanka the police had detained him for few hours and recorded his statement and then released him late last evening.

“Before I landed here in Colombo, I thought I would be sent to the Boossa detention camp after questioning, but that has not happened. The police treated me well and I am going to be a free man again, as they are going to release me,” he said.

Police said they had released Dayan Anthony after recording his statement last evening.

Meanwhile the Sri Lanka government is working on forming a national committee to ensure readmission of illegal migrants living abroad in the wake of increased number of asylum seekers illegally leaving the island’s shores.

With over 200 failed asylum seekers apprehended by the police and navy in the past 10 days alone, the government has sanctioned the National Coordinating Committee on Re-admission (NCCR) proposed by the External Affairs Minister, G. L. Peiris.

“Sri Lanka has a re-admission bilateral agreement with the European Union to regulate and repatriate Sri Lankan asylum seekers who are residing in various countries illegally, and is entering into several bilateral agreements with member countries to formalise them,” said Sarath Dissanayake, Director of the External Affairs Ministry