AB (Ahmadiyya Association UK: Letters) Pakistan [Asylum and Immigration Tribunal]

We make an order under rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 prohibiting the disclosure or publication of any matter likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant.

The appellant appeals a decision of a panel of the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Warren L Grant sitting with a non-legal member, Dr J O De Barros) who dismissed his appeal against a decision dated 11 January 2011 that the appellant is subject to automatic deportation pursuant to s32(5) UK Borders Act 2007. The panel concluded that none of the exceptions provided for in the Act apply. On 25 ^th July 2012 Upper Tribunal Judge Goldstein found an error of law in the following terms:

The factual findings preserved from the First-tier Tribunal determination are as follows:

35. We find that the appellant's mother has exaggerated a number of issues in her evidence. Despite her claim that the factory is not doing well we accept the appellant's evidence that it employs 150 workers and that it supplies plastic bags to retail outlets inside Pakistan. There is no evidence that it has been attacked or that the management or workers face discrimination or difficulties on account of the faith of the owners. The appellant seeks to rely upon two complaints allegedly filed at the Race Course police station in Lahore. The reports purport to have been filed by the manager of the factory and by the appellant's mother. The reports state that threats have been made by one Kamil Khan to burn down the factory on account of money allegedly owed to him by the appellant's late father. If there is a date on the report filed by the manager it has not been translated by the translator but the mother's complaint is dated 19 ^th October 2010. According to the translation the complaint bears her thumb print although we do not believe that she was present in Pakistan on 19 October 2010. The translation states, “I have recently come here from Pakistan” which makes little sense. The complaint states that she had been receiving threatening phone calls on what is clearly a mobile phone in London from a mobile phone in Pakistan. We do not know how a total stranger could have found out her mobile phone number but we are not assisted by the print out of phone calls made/received which follows. It appears from a separate document that the manager allegedly lodged his complaint on 31 August 2010 and we find that if a threat was made as long ago as August 2010 the maker of the threat would have made good his threat long before November 2011. We find that the appellant or someone on his behalf has manufactured evidence and we make an adverse credibility finding against both him and his mother.

36. We also find that despite claims made by the appellant and by his mother that the close relatives in Pakistan have either all emigrated [sic] there is an aunt who may well believe that she is entitled to succeed to her late brother's ownership of this factory. Although the appellant's mother claimed that this aunt is a member of the Pakistan People's Party and that she has (if we heard correctly) forsaken her Ahmadi faith for that of Islam, the appellant's mother runs the factory by phone and by email, keeping a careful eye on the accounts and visiting the factory as necessary. Despite her ailments she managed to visit on her own in January 2011 and we find that she has exaggerated her health problems in order to try to show that she is dependent on the appellant. There is a thriving business in the ownership of an Ahmadi family and we reject any suggestion that threats of any kind have been or are being made to the management.

37. We find that the appellant's older brother was already in Pakistan at the time of the murders and that the appellant and his mother arrived on the following day. The appellant has variously stated that he stayed in the family home in Lahore which we find the family (most probably his mother) still owns. It seems that this is the address which appears at the top of the complaint allegedly filed by her with the Lahore police in October 2010. The appellant claims that he stayed there with his sister-in-law and his two nephews but that he posted extra guards. He and his mother have also stated that they were advised that terrorists were watching the house so they stayed in a hotel. Both versions cannot be correct and there is no explanation to show how anyone could have known that terrorists or any other people were watching the house. If they were so interested in the appellant and his mother that they watched the house they will have known that they checked into a hotel especially when we take into account the appellant's claim that he was known to be his father's son and that far from keeping a low profile he gave interviews to Al—Jazeera. He further claimed in his interview that the Taliban made threats to him through phone calls to the factory and to his mother but we have rejected the possibility that threats were made to the factory and we find that his mother remained in Pakistan for 6 weeks after the murder without suffering any adverse consequences. The appellant has also claimed that during his imprisonment in the UK the Taliban have phoned someone else to make threats against him but his mother makes no mention of these later phone calls.

38. We find that the conflicting accounts show that the appellant and his mother have exaggerated their stories to try to create adverse interest in the appellant whereas in fact there is none. We find that on 16 December the appellant signed a disclaimer withdrawing his asylum claim. He claims that he thought he could rely on the grant of indefinite leave to remain but on 30 October 2010 he had received a notice of liability to deportation and we believe that he well understood that ILR would not avail him. He sought to withdraw his asylum claim because he knew that there was no basis to seek international protection. He now seeks to reinstate it based upon a conflicting account which is lacking in credibility.

Further undisputed facts are as follows:

Before us the appellant submitted that his deportation would result in persecution for reasons of religion, both as an individual who would actively observe and preach his faith and because of his social and business links to a prominent Ahmadi family; would be a breach of Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR and would be a breach of Article 8 of the ECHR. We also heard submissions from Mr Halim with regards to Article 8.

We heard oral evidence from the appellant, his mother (through an interpreter) and Mr Imran Zafar who is the head of all security arrangements in the UK for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association UK. The appellant and his mother gave sworn evidence. The appellant was reminded that his previous evidence both to the criminal court and to the First-tier Tribunal had been disbelieved and that this panel would take...