Would be migrants returned by Australia, detained by CID

The Government has confirmed 12 would-be migrants sent back to Colombo by Australia last week are currently in the hands of its Criminal Investigation Department (CID), ABC news Australia reported.

Immigration and Emigration Department told the ABC the group Australia sent back last week are all members of the majority Sinhalese ethnicity, and insists they are all being treated properly.

Yesterday Immigration Minister Peter Dutton confirmed recent reports that a boat carrying 12 Sri Lankans had reached the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, north-west of the Australian mainland.

Mr Dutton also said the Government's assertion it has stopped the boats remained accurate, because the dozen on board were sent back to Colombo last week.

"We were able to successfully return those 12 people, which included men women and children, back safely to Sri Lanka on the sixth of May," he said. Now, Sri Lanka's Immigration Department has confirmed its officers have given the group over to the country's Criminal Investigation Department.

Immigration Department spokesman Lakshma Zoysa said the group was being investigated to determine "how they went from Sri Lanka". "They are involved in criminal activities, yeah, that's an immigration crime," he said.

The group is also being questioned he said, to try and glean information about who organised the trip. Mr Zoysa said he does not know where the group is currently. Asked if they were being detained, he replied "maybe".

However, he said that the returnees were being treated properly. "We are not torture them, our CID officers ... handle them [in a] legal manner," Mr Zoysa said. Sri Lanka's security agencies stand accused of ongoing torture and mistreatment.

Over the weekend, the UN's rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, wound up a visit to Sri Lanka concluding that its police lacked accountability.

Mr Mendez said it was essential that the country "establish mechanism for real judicial and prosecutorial control over police investigations". Mr Zoysa said the men, women and children who had been returned by Australia were all ethnic Sinhalese, not members of the Tamil minority with whom the Sri Lankan Government fought a bloody civil war lasting 26 years. "They're all Sinhalese people," Mr Zoysa said.