US court orders Sri Lankan released after 5 years

SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 17 (Reuters) A US court today ordered the government to release a Sri Lankan who has been imprisoned for five years after he tried to enter America seeking asylum from alleged torture in his home country.

Ahilan Nadarajah, a 25-year old member of the Tamil ethnic minority on the island nation, was tortured by government troops at his home in the Jaffna peninsula of northern Sri Lanka on suspicion that he was a member of the separatist Tamil Tigers group, according to court papers.

He attempted to enter the United States illegally in 2001, and has been detained ever since without being charged with any crime.

''We conclude that the general detention statutes relied upon by the government do not authorise indefinite detention,'' Judge Sidney Thomas wrote for a three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

''When examined under the analysis prescribed by the Supreme Court, Nadarajah's detention is unreasonable, unjustified, and in violation of federal law.'' The decision cited an earlier Supreme Court ruling finding that detention for a period of six months is permissible in such cases only if removal is soon likely.

''A detention of nearly five years -- ten times the amount of time the Supreme Court has considered acceptable absent a special showing -- is plainly unreasonable under any measure,'' the judge wrote.

A 2002 truce halted two decades of civil war in Sri Lanka and left the Tamil Tigers in control of the Tamil-dominated north and east.

REUTERS VJ RAI0232