Tribunal decisions

The decision

IAC-AH-KEW-V1

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA/01472/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Bradford
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 27th July 2016
On 2nd August 2016

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE D E TAYLOR

Between

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant

and

Ahmed AlshimmARI
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)

Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mrs R Pettersen, Home Office Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Haleema Naz

DECISION AND REASONS

1. This is the Secretary of State's appeal against the decision of Judge O'Hanlon made following a hearing at Bradford on 8th June 2016.
Background
2. The claimant says that he in an uncertificated Bidoon from Kuwait but was believed by the Secretary of State to be an Iraqi national.
3. At the hearing before the judge, the claimant accepted that he had given false information in Greece and had not given correct information in his screening interview. In particular the judge recorded that, according to the Secretary of State, he had a fingerprint match with an application for an Iraqi passport and US visa which the claimant had never mentioned. He acknowledged that the claimant's sister had been accepted as the wife of an undocumented Bidoon but it did not follow that she was such herself.
4. On the other hand, the claimant relied upon linguistic origin identification which confirmed that he belonged to a Gulf Arabic linguistic community supporting the suggestion that he was from Kuwait. He had also given detailed knowledge of Kuwait generally and the specific area in which he said that he had lived in his asylum interview. There was also the evidence of his sister who supported his claim.
5. The judge found in the claimant's favour and, applying the case of BA and Others (Bidoons Stateless Risk of Persecution) Kuwait CG [2004] UKIAT 00256, allowed the appeal on asylum grounds.
The Grounds of Application
6. The Secretary of State sought permission to appeal on the grounds that the judge had failed to give adequate consideration to the issue of the passport. He must have either attended the US Embassy in Baghdad to submit his visa application or to have been able to rely on an agent within the US Embassy to allow him to avoid personal involvement. The US visa issuing authorities in Baghdad are highly security conscious and it would not have been possible for an agent to attend an interview in his place unless there was complicity. There was no record in the determination to confirm that this formed a part of the judge's reasoning. In view of the other significant adverse credibility findings, the judge was required to provide adequate reasons for accepting that the claimant must have received assistance from someone within the US Embassy when the application was made in 2013.
7. Permission to appeal was given by Judge Grant on 7th July 2016 for the reasons stated in the grounds.
Submissions
8. Mrs Pettersen relied on her grounds and submitted that there was insufficient evidence before the judge to establish that he was an undocumented Bidoon as claimed.
9. Miss Naz submitted that she had provided objective evidence to show that many Iraqi passports were fraudulently obtained. She observed that, although the Presenting Officer at the hearing said that he had requested a fraud check to be made on this particular passport, no further information had ever been given by the respondent and no copy of the passport had been produced. There was no evidence that the application for a visa had been granted and indeed it could have been refused because the passport was fake.
Findings and Conclusions
10. This is an attempt by the Secretary of State to re-argue her case. The judge took into account all of the relevant evidence, including the evidence in relation to the passport, but in the absence of further information, it could not be determinative of the issue. Against that he had clear evidence of the claimant's knowledge of Kuwait. He was entitled to observe that his ability to give directions from one area to another was suggestive of a degree and depth of knowledge which could not be acquired by learning without having spent considerable time in the area referred to. There was also the linguistic evidence.
11. Most importantly the judge heard live evidence from the claimant's sister. It was open to him to conclude, having heard that evidence, that she was a credible witness. The judge acknowledged that there were credibility issues in the claimant's evidence but was perfectly entitled to find that they had been outweighed by other factors. There is no error of law in that decision.
Notice of Decision

The judge did not err in law and his decision stands.

No anonymity direction is made.

Signed Date 1 August 2016

Upper Tribunal Judge Taylor