SEE! How Innocent Tamil Refugees Are Treated in USA by USAG?

Lankan cleared for US asylum after years of detention

LOS ANGELES—A Sri Lankan man has become eligible for asylum in the U.S. after being detained for more than four years on allegations he was a member of a terrorist group, an American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman said Tuesday.


The U.S. attorney general's office decided last week that it would not review an Immigration Appeals Board decision granting asylum to Ahilan Nadarajah, who was released from custody in 2006, ACLU of Southern California spokeswoman Tessie Borden said.

U.S. immigration judges twice granted asylum to Nadarajah, but the government appealed both decisions to the board, Borden said.

The attorney general's office did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Nadarajah, 28, said he fled his homeland seven years ago after Sri Lankan government forces tortured him for allegedly being a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

He arrived in this country in October 2001 but was detained after the U.S. government accused him of being affiliated with the Tigers.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Nadarajah's release in March 2006, saying the government was violating federal law by holding him without being charged and without the possibility of deportation in the foreseeable future. (The Associated Press)