Appeal No: ME (Risk –Failed Asylum Seekers-Hassan)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr J Perkins |
| Judgment Date | 17 December 2003 |
| Neutral Citation | [2003] UKIAT 200 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Date | 17 December 2003 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No: |
[2003] UKIAT 200
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
The Honourable Mr Justice Ouseley (President)
Mr P R Moulden
Mr J Perkins
Appeal No:
ME (Risk -Failed Asylum Seekers-Hassan)Libya CG
) Before us Ms S Conlan, a legal representative from TRP solicitors, appeared for the Appellant and Mr M J Blundell, a Home Office Presenting Officer, appeared for the Respondent.
) The Appellant is a citizen of Libya. He was born on 22nd July 1970 and so is now aged 33 years. In a determination promulgated on 3rd July 2003, an Adjudicator, Mr J F W Phillips, dismissed his appeal against a decision of the Secretary of State that he was not entitled to refugee status and that removing him would not be contrary to the United Kingdom's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. It is against that decision that he appeals. Following statutory review under section 101(2) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, Maurice Kay J held that it was arguable that the Appellant would risk persecution or other serious ill-treatment in the event of his return even though the Adjudicator had found the Appellant to be untruthful in important respects.
) The Appellant said that he arrived in the United Kingdom on 30th December 2002. He claimed asylum on 9th January 2003. He has now been in the United Kingdom for almost a year.
) The Adjudicator summarised the Appellant's in paragraph 17. The Appellant is a medical practitioner. On 25th October 2002, four prisoners were brought to the hospital where he worked. They were each in a bad condition and one of them died. A colleague of the Appellant's was asked to provide a death certificate showing, untruthfully, that the prisoner died of natural causes. The medical practitioners believed that he had died as a result of ill-treatment and poor prison conditions. The Appellant and his colleagues decided to submit a truthful report to two human rights organisations, one in Switzerland and one in Holland. On 26th December 2002, the Appellant was on holiday when he received a telephone call telling him that two of his colleagues had been arrested. The Appellant said he went immediately to Tunisia which he entered illegally on a desert track that had no customs or immigration control. He then made his way to the United Kingdom where he sought asylum. The Adjudicator believed that the Appellant is a medical practitioner but not much else that he said. In particular, the Adjudicator did not believe that the Appellant was part of a group that compiled a report to submit to human rights organisations or that the Appellant left Libya in fear of imminent arrest or that his colleagues and family members have been arrested or that he told the truth about his mode of entry and date of entry to the United Kingdom.
) Ms Conlan's primary submission was very simple. She said that it is not safe to return this Appellant to Libya. She supported this proposition with reference to background material.
) She referred to a Tribunal decision in the case of Hassan [2002] UKIAT 00062 where the Tribunal referred to advice from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of Libya that anyone returned to Libya after an absence in excess of six months is subject to interrogation by the security authorities. Such people are routinely imprisoned by administrative order for “having shown disloyalty to the state”. That case was decided in February 2002.
) We were also shown a letter from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office dated 15th April 2002, which said that returnees to Libya would not generally face serious difficulties provided they had not been involved in “ anti-regime activities”. The Libyan authorities appeared to be taking a more relaxed view. At a meeting in January 2002, Her Majesty's Ambassador in Tripoli was told that economic migrants and those who have committed crimes were unlikely to be of any significance to the security authorities. The letter indicated that the information given to the Ambassador formally was consistent with the information given by the Embassy's legal adviser. The Embassy accepted that travel documents might well highlight a returned person for special attention by the Internal Security Authorities and if there was anything in a person's record it might well turn up when the name was researched. Subject to that qualification, Her Majesty's Ambassador in Tripoli was confident in his sources and believed that it should be possible to return some categories of migrant without a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
) Ms Conlan then took us to a letter from Amnesty International dated 5th September 2003. This noted that Amnesty International continues to be “ extremely concerned about the fate of rejected asylum seekers who have been returned to Libya”. Amnesty International has followed up cases of forcible return to Libya since the mid 1990s. In those cases that it had investigated, the asylum seeker had been detained upon return and either remained in detention or no information is available about their plight. There were several cases in which Amnesty International was satisfied that the forcibly returned person had been subjected to serious human rights violations including torture. The letter then gave an example of people detained in Jordan on suspicion of sympathising with Islamist groups. It was reported that three of those returned had been killed. The Libyan authorities did not respond to the allegations. Amnesty International was satisfied that an asylum seeker returned by the United Kingdom in April 2000 was detained following his return. The letter also explained that it was difficult to investigate such things in Libya as a climate of fear prevented people from reporting their concerns to human rights groups around the world. Amnesty International believed there were hundreds of political prisoners in Libya. Many of them are reported to have died. Finally, Amnesty International expressed concern that information about the history of cases of asylum seekers and overstayers in the United Kingdom was readily available to the Libyan authorities and in the eyes of the Libyan Government making a refugee claim is an act of opposition and any Government opponent is at risk of being brutally punished.
) We were referred to a translation of a Dutch report dated November 2002. This noted the UNHCR recommendation of October 2000 that caution was needed before asylum seekers could be returned to Libya. Reports showed that people leaving Libya are subject to very strict controls. Until autumn 2001, all Libyans who had stayed longer than six months were interviewed about their...
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