A desperate bid to escape civil war in Sri Lanka led to a 16-year nightmare within Australia's immigration detention system, culminating in a tragic suicide that left a family shattered across two continents.
Escape from War to a Legal Labyrinth
In early 2009, as Sri Lanka's brutal civil war reached its bloody climax, Alex was forced to make an impossible choice. A Sinhalese Catholic and political campaigner who had already suffered kidnapping and mutilation, he faced escalating violence. With a two-year-old daughter and a pregnant wife, he pooled resources with 31 others and fled by boat, arriving in Australian waters on 22 April 2009.
Intercepted off Western Australia, his journey towards safety transformed into a protracted legal ordeal. Because he had collected money and the boat was in his name, Alex was charged with people-smuggling and sentenced to five years in 2010. This conviction was later quashed on appeal, with the court acknowledging a "significant possibility" he had lost a chance of acquittal. The prosecution withdrew the charge, deeming a retrial not in the public interest.
A Decade in Detention Without Hope
Despite the collapsed criminal case, Alex was not freed. He was transferred directly into immigration detention, where he would remain for nearly a decade. Shuttled between onshore centres and the remote Christmas Island facility, his case became a tortuous cycle of fleeting hope and crushing disappointment.
In 2011, his protection visa application was refused. A later independent review found Australia owed him "complementary protection," stating he risked imprisonment, torture, or serious mistreatment if returned to Sri Lanka. Yet, he remained detained. His mental health deteriorated severely; he was diagnosed with depression and attempted suicide on Good Friday 2012.
Case managers within the Home Affairs department witnessed his despair. One, John, recalled a ministerial note on Alex's file that simply read: "deport this man", despite ongoing protection claims. "What chance did we have?" John said.
Brief Freedom and a Final, Fatal Despair
After a federal court challenge, Alex was finally granted a temporary protection visa in 2020, over 11 years after first being detained. He worked in remote parts of Australia, sending money home to the wife and children he could not visit. Friends describe a man who worked hard, wanting to support his family and live a regular life.
But his visa was temporary. As its September 2024 expiry date loomed, his anxiety grew. Isolated in Western Australia's Pilbara region and fearing a return to detention, his fragile mental health collapsed. On a Sunday in September, he took a taxi to Perth's Kings Park. There, alone, Alex set himself on fire.
He was later identified only by his fingerprints. That evening, his 18-year-old daughter Latheesha called for their regular chat. A police officer answered the phone. From nearly 6,000km away, she and her 16-year-old brother, who had never met his father, learned of their final, devastating loss.
Alex's lawyer, Sanmati Verma, had earlier condemned the ministerial handling of his case, arguing it showed a "fundamental misunderstanding of the separation of powers." His story stands as a harrowing indictment of a system where legal limbo and indefinite detention can have the most profound human cost.
