ST (Corroboration – Kasolo)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | H J E LATTER,VICE PRESIDENT |
| Judgment Date | 27 May 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] UKIAT 119 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Date | 27 May 2004 |
[2004] UKIAT 119
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
Mr H J E Latter — Vice President
Mrs R Faux JP
For the Appellant: Mr Z Jafferji of Counsel
For the Respondent: Mr I Richards, Home Office Presenting Officer
ST (Corroboration — Kasolo) Ethiopia
The Appellant, a citizen of Ethiopia, appeals against the determination of an Adjudicator, Mrs R Goldfarb, who dismissed his appeal against the decision made on 2 June 2003 refusing him leave to enter following the refusal of his claim for asylum.
The Appellant arrived in the United Kingdom at Heathrow Airport on 11 April 2003 and claimed asylum on arrival. The basis of his claim can be briefly be summarised as follows.
The Appellant is a well-known football player in Ethiopia. In 2001 he became a member of the EDP and had the responsibility of recruiting new members to the party. He began having problems when he was selected to pay for the national team. If he was playing abroad the other players would have their own passports but his passport was kept by the Football Federation. He was also assigned additional security during his football activities. The Football Federation attempted to force him to play for government teams which are military teams. He was told that if he refused to play either he or his family members would be in danger. He did refuse to play. He knew that if he accepted a position he would be recruited as a solider.
The Appellant was given a warning and about two weeks later one of his brothers was killed by government soldiers. His refusal to play continued and he suffered harassment from the military. On one occasion he found that his car had been smashed. Two days later soldiers came to his home and told him that if he did not leave his own football team and stop his involvement with the EDP he would be killed. There was another occasion when he was leaving his house and two soldiers were waiting for him. One of them hit him in the face with the butt of a gun. The appellant fell down and was knocked unconscious. He was taken to hospital where he stayed for a week. He had an operation on his eyelid where he had been hit. He then recovered for two or three weeks.
The Appellant approached the Ethiopian Cultural Minister to ask if he could have a letter in support of an application to obtain a visa to leave the country and play football in the United Kingdom. The government put pressure on his football club to write to the British Embassy as they did not want him to leave. He realised how critical the situation was for both himself and his wife. He approached an agent to help them cross the border into Kenya. They arrived in Nairobi on 1 January 2003. They remained there for three months awaiting the agent's further actions and in April 2003 he was able to board a plane for the United Kingdom.
The Adjudicator did not believe the account given by the Appellant. She has set out her findings and conclusions in paragraphs 32–35 of her determination. The Appellant had asserted that he kept his own political affiliations secret from his football club although they were known to the Football Federation. The Adjudicator did not consider this credible. The Football Federation was said to be trying to force the Appellant to play for government teams which were military teams but there was no objective evidence to support this assertion.
The appellant had said that because of his failure to play for the military team his brother had been killed and that later his own car had been smashed up. The Adjudicator commented that there was no evidence before her to support any of those assertions. She acknowledged that it was often difficult for claimants in asylum cases to provide documentation but she did consider that it would not have been difficult for the Appellant to have provided a death certificate relating to his brother. He had suffered injuries to his eye and had received hospital treatment. It would not have been unduly difficult to have provided some written evidence in support of that assertion.
The Adjudicator did not believe that the appellant was of any interest to the authorities nor that there was a serious risk if returned to Ethiopia that he would suffer ill-treatment amounting to persecution. She commented that there was no evidence to support his assertions. She had given the case the most anxious scrutiny and had exercised extreme caution before finding that the Appellant was lacking in credibility. She referred to...
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...[2007] EWCA Civ 460 SS (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 155 ST (Corroboration – Kasolo) Ethiopia [2004] UKIAT 119 SZ and JM (Christians – FS confirmed) Iran CG [2008] UKAIT 82 (IAC) Santos-Albert v Ochi [2018] EWHC 1277 (Ch); [2018] 4 WLR 88; [2018] 4......
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2020-03-11, [2020] UKUT 125 (IAC) (MH (review; slip rule; church witnesses))
...as a result of her conversion. It was impermissible to require corroboration of this evidence: ST (Corroboration – Kasolo) Ethiopia [2004] UKIAT 119. In any event, there was no suggestion that the point had been raised with the appellant, which was procedurally The judge’s reliance, at [32]......
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2020-01-28, [2020] UKUT 125 (IAC) (MH (review; slip rule; church witnesses))
...as a result of her conversion. It was impermissible to require corroboration of this evidence: ST (Corroboration – Kasolo) Ethiopia [2004] UKIAT 119. In any event, there was no suggestion that the point had been raised with the appellant, which was procedurally The judge’s reliance, at [32]......
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2020-03-11, PA/05646/2019
...as a result of her conversion. It was impermissible to require corroboration of this evidence: ST (Corroboration – Kasolo) Ethiopia [2004] UKIAT 119. In any event, there was no suggestion that the point had been raised with the appellant, which was procedurally The judge’s reliance, at [32]......