Mudalige

MEMORANDUM ***

Nayanananda Ratnayake Mudalige (“Ratnayake”), a native and citizen of Sri Lanka, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) summary affirmation of the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) order denying his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Ratnayake claims that he *665 was persecuted and tortured while in Sri Lanka on account of his political and humanitarian opinions.

Noting that he likely did not have “sufficient, specific, cogent reasons” for finding Ratnayake’s testimony incredible, the IJ nonetheless made an explicit adverse credibility determination by discounting Ratnayake’s story of kidnaping and torture by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elom (“LTTE”)-the heart of Ratnayake’s claim of past persecution. The IJ based this adverse credibility determination on his own personal speculation regarding the effect of sustained blood loss on someone of Ratnayake’s physique:

Nothing in the record, in the way of medical testimony or documentary evidence, supports this speculation. It is an untenable ground for an adverse credibility finding, and we therefore take the testimony…