When the burning metal rod sank into his shoulder, K passed out to the sound of his own screams. He sensed more burning wounds on his back when he came round. It was August 2009 and he was in a government interrogation room in Sri Lanka. K’s torturers kept asking him where the gold was that he hid for the Tamil Tigers. “I swear I don’t know,” he told them. “I’m not LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]. I’m a jeweller’s assistant.” They poured petrol over his wounded body and threatened to set it alight unless he told them what they wanted to know.
Or did they? Did any of this happen? When K arrived in the UK in 2011, he sought asylum, but had his claim repeatedly rejected. The scars, officials decided, could have been caused by what was known officially as “wounding SIBP” (self-inflicted by proxy), in order to manufacture evidence in support of a false asylum claim.
