Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-005300

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/62443/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

29th May 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HANSON

Between

BA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Mozhan instructed by CB Solicitors.
For the Respondent: Mrs Arif, a Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 23 May 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Appellant is a citizen of Iraq born on the 28 March 1995.
2. His claim for international protection was dismissed by the First-tier Tribunal but a material error of law found in that decision by a Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge in a determination promulgated on the 26 February 2025, although the findings at [1-30] of the First-tier decision are preserved.
3. The three issues identified as being at large by the First-tier Tribunal were (a) the Appellants claim that he had a relationship with his uncle’s wife, (b) whether his uncle is a powerful member of the PUK, and (c) the Appellants claim that he has no ID documents so that he cannot return safely.
4. The first two issues were determined and rejected in the preserved findings, leaving only the third issue to be decided by me today.
5. The actual findings of the First-tier Judge are set out from [14] of that determination, in which a number of concerns arising from the Appellant’s evidence are identified, leading that judge to find at [29]-[30]:
29. I find that all of these contradictions mean I give little weight to his claim about his uncle and the claimed association with the PUK. He has also not provided any evidence to show that his uncle has any other power or influence that would place the Appellant at risk on return.
30. As if find that the Appellant has fabricated his account, I do not need to consider take protection or internal relocation as he is safe to go home.
6. In his latest witness statement dated 11 March 2025 the Appellant writes:
4. In terms of my ID documents, I had a CSID card, birth certificate and passport which I gave to the agent and he never returned them to me. When we were arrested by some authorities enroute to the UK, those authorities confiscated my passport which the agent had retained and they never released it. I cannot secure a new ID card in person or by proxy as the new system requires me to be present. If I return, my uncle and family will kill me and I can only have the new ID issued in my local area. I was born in Chwarquma district which is under Rania town. The nearest airports are Sulaymaniya and Erbil that they are more than 2 hours away meaning I have to pass through several checkpoints before I arrive and an ID is required for these checkpoints.
7. The Appellant claims that he cannot even travel within the country or internally relocate without ID.
8. The Appellant’s latest witness statement seeks to resurrect his arguments in relation to his protection claim but that aspect has been firmly rejected in the preserved findings and is not a live issue before me today. Relying on a claim that has been found to be fabricated casts further doubt upon the credibility of the Appellant’s evidence.
9. However, I accept the submission of Mr Mozhan that because the Appellant has been found to have lied in relation to the core aspects of his appeal in relation to the first two issues, it does not necessarily mean that he is lying in relation to the third issue, that of documentation. That is an established legal principle.
10. It must not be forgotten, however, that there remains a burden and standard of proof applicable in proceedings of this nature, even to the lower standard relevant to a protection claim, that the Appellant, upon whom it falls in relation to this issue, has to discharge.
11. Mrs Arif in her submissions referred to the findings of the First-tier Tribunal which clearly established the Appellant has lied in relation to his asylum claim and that he maintained such lies before the First-tier Tribunal. The preserved findings of the First-tier Tribunal establish the truth of the issues to which they relate, namely the claim for international protection, and the basis on which it was determined the only explanation for the lie was guilt, i.e. that the Appellant was deliberately seeking to mislead by making statements that he could not have believed were true.
12. That is the importance of the Appellant seeking to rely upon a claim yet again that has been found to be a lie. There is nothing in the evidence to show the First-tier Judge’s findings do not remain sustainable. The Appellant by seeking to rely on untruths clearly demonstrates a further propensity to lie to achieve his desired aims.
13. At the outset of the hearing Mr Mozhan apply to adjourn the appeal in light of the pending country guidance case before the Upper Tribunal considering the issue of documentation and return to Iraq which will look at the pilot scheme being operated by the Iraqi Embassy in the UK to enable Iraqi nationals to obtain an INID outside Iraq, in this case in the UK.
14. The application was refused as the policy of the Upper Tribunal at this stage is not to adjourn cases generally to await the outcome of that decision, as it is only in the case management stage with no indication of when the appeal will be heard or the decision handed down.
15. Mrs Arif also stated she would not be relying upon the pilot scheme but the principal findings in relation to the Appellant’s dishonesty and the current CPIN.
16. On that basis there was no reason to adjourn and the application was refused.
Discussion and analysis
17. The Appellant, in his screening interview dated 2 December 2021, was asked whether he had any evidence to confirm his identity which he stated he did not. It was noted the Appellant claimed he left Iraq on 23 September 2021 by plane and flew to Turkey where he stayed until 9 October 2021, then flew to what he claims was another unknown country, before being taken in a van to another unknown place, from where he travelled to the UK on 16 November 2021 by boat. He must, therefore, have had access to necessary travel documents to enable him to fly into Turkey and from there to the alleged unknown country.
18. When asked where his passport was the Appellant replied, “my passport was taken during my journey”.
19. In relation to the question asking why he had come to the UK the Appellant claimed that it was as a result of a family dispute/honour killing and that his life was in danger from a maternal uncle who was a member of the PUK.
20. The Appellant when asked when he had been fingerprinted and claimed he was fingerprinted in an unknown country during his journey. It lacks credibility that the Appellant claimed not to know which country he was in, especially if he was encountered by the authorities in that country. If he genuinely did not know, it must have meant he had no awareness of the flight he was boarding or its destination, or where he was being taken by the agent. This is not an Appellant to claims to be illiterate but a person who states he is a philosophy graduate.
21. The Appellant outlines details of his journey in reply to question 3.4, claiming he left Iraq on 23 September 2021 and travel by air to Turkey where he stayed until 9 October 2021. He then travelled to an unknown country by plane on a 3 ½ hour flight which, if he was heading West which is a reasonable assumption, would have taken him into Western Europe to destinations like Spain, Italy or the UK, Holland or to destinations in the Mediterranean such as Sicily or Greece. In any event, the Appellant claims to have been able to remain in that country for 15 days.
22. The Appellant claims he then travelled by van, with no claim of having travelled in a boat, and must have left that destination on the 24 October 2021, or thereabouts. As this is the screening interview the Appellant was not required to give further detail but did claim that he was fingerprinted and his passport was taken away when he arrived in the van at the unknown country.
23. The Appellant states three days later he travelled to the jungle which he must have been aware was in France since people trafficking is, as is well known, a business controlled by unscrupulous individuals for financial gain. The Appellant would have paid a large sum of money to an agent to bring him to the UK which involved at least two air flights and a berth on one of the boats across the English Channel, if his account of his journey is credible.
24. In the continuation of his asylum interview, dated 9 June 2023, the Appellant when asked about his Iraqi identity documents and claimed he had a Civil Service Identity Card (CSID), Iraqi National Certificate (INC) and a passport. He confirmed that he provided fingerprints for those documents but asked whether he had copies of the documents he claimed that on his journey to the UK the agent took all his documents.
25. I find that contradicts the claim he was fingerprinted and his passport was taken from him which indicates that he was encountered by border or immigration officials or the police in the country to which he travelled, as it is unlikely that an agent would fingerprints the Appellant.
26. In his formal asylum interview dated 27 October 2023 the Appellant confirmed that the details of his screening interview and continuation interview were correct.
27. In answer to the questions about why he left Iraq, in both the early interview and the SEF asylum interview the Appellant repeated the claims which were found by the First-tier Tribunal to be a lie.
28. This is relevant as Mr Mozhan submitted in support of his claim the Appellant was telling the truth about his documents as he had been consistent in relation to his account. He had been consistent in relation to the core of his claim in his asylum interview although was found to be inconsistent by the First-tier Tribunal after giving his oral evidence. The fact the Appellant was consistent is therefore not determinative of the question of whether he was telling the truth, which remains the situation in relation to the documentation issue. In any event, I do not find the Appellant has been consistent in relation to his documents.
29. The Appellant was asked about his ID documents at question 33 to which he stated he did not have them. When asked what happened to them in question 34, he claimed that on his way to the UK the agent took everything from him and destroyed it [34].
30. At [35] it was put to the Appellant that he had stated in his screening interview that his passport was taken by the authorities in an unknown country he passed through although in his asylum claim questionnaire, he said it was taken from him by the agent. The Appellant was asked which of these versions was correct to which he replied “When we left he was controlling our IDs and documents, he knew that we’d been arrested, he gave us the IDs back and he had only given the passport back, he kept the other IDs, then we were arrested by police authority or military, they took the passport from us and we didn’t get the passport back, the IDs stayed with the agent”.
31. His answer undermines the earlier claim that all the ID documents were taken and kept by the agent. It is also inconsistent with other claims made including not knowing which country he was. I find it implausible that if the Appellant was encountered by the police authorities or military they would not have advised him which country in he was in or, if he was unaware, he would not have asked, even if only to establish whether he had arrived in his intended destination of the UK.
32. The Appellant was asked about his documents in cross examination in which he repeated the claim made in the asylum interview, again claimed he did not have enough information to know about the country he was in when he was arrested by the police, which I do not find credible, and claimed that in relation to documents the agent kept all the other documents including a CSID but handed back his passport which the police confiscated. I have commented upon the merits of this in relation to the other aspects of the evidence above.
33. I also note the claim in [4] of the Appellant’s latest witness statement in which he writes: “In terms of my ID documents, I had a CSID card, birth certificate and passport which I gave to the agent and he never returned them to me. When we were arrested by some authorities enroute to the UK, those authorities confiscated my passport which the agent had retained and they never released it” this contradicts his claim the agent gave him back his passport which the authorities took from him when he was encountered, and the claim the agent retuned his passport to him but kept the other documents. This is further evidence of lack of consistency or truth in the Appellant’s evidence.
34. The Appellant stated he has attempted to contact the Iraqi Consulate to try and obtain documents but has been unsuccessful. Such a claim is of little evidential value as if a person walks into a country’s Consulate seeking Consular assistance the first thing they are going to want to know is whether there is proof they are a national of the country concerned. The Appellant did not take any documents or anything with him to assist in relation to that point, and so it is not surprising the Consulate would have been unable to assist him until he provided such material.
35. Mr Mozhan on behalf of the Appellant referred to earlier adverse credibility findings not being determinative in themselves, and that the rejection of the Appellant’s asylum claim as lacking credibility and the preserved findings should not be the starting point for assessing the merits of his claim in relation to documentation.
36. That appears to be a submission that notwithstanding the fact the Appellant has been proved to be a liar and a person who is willing to say whatever he needs to say to secure his desire to stay in United Kingdom, his further claim should be considered from a neutral standpoint as if such findings had not been made. Even if I adopt that approach as my starting point I cannot ignore or not factor into the consideration of the weight to be given to the later claims the preserved findings of the First-tier Tribunal. Therefore, even if not treated as a starting point they are a very material factor which it is permissible to take into account when considering the weight to be given to the later claims.
37. I have not treated the earlier adverse findings as determinative and have considered all the evidence in the round, including the records of interview and claims made by the Appellant, but reject the submission by Mr Mozhan that the Secretary of State had not set out a basis for dismissing the appeal as she clearly had, namely that the Appellant was lying and that nothing he said could be believed. The submission of Mrs Arif was that account must be taken of the adverse credibility issues when assessing the weight to be given to the Appellant’s claims in relation to the documents.
38. I find no merit in the submission by Mr Mozhan that the Appellant’s evidence should be accepted as being true in relation to the documents. As noted above, the claim he had been consistent and credible is not correct. His claim to have been consistent and credible in relation to other issues was clearly rejected by the First-tier Tribunal too.
39. Mr Mozhan submitted that the Appellant would need to go to his local CSA office to obtain identity documents for which he will be required to go in person. Also, if it is accepted he has no CSID, which he cannot obtain by proxy, and even if he could travel to Iraq, he would not be able to get to the CSA office without facing a real risk sufficient to entitle him to a grant of Humanitarian Protection.
40. I am not satisfied the Appellant has discharged the burden of proof upon him to the required standard to show he is telling the truth in relation to his identity documents. The only credible aspect of his claim is that if he was encountered by the police or military in a country enroute and he handed his passport to them as proof of identity of who he was and the country he originated from, as he would have been fingerprinted and his passport seized in such a scenario.
41. I am not satisfied the Appellant has established that he does not have his CSID which he stated he had taken with him when he left Iraq together with his identity certificate.
42. The Appellant will be returned to an airport in the IKR in accordance with the Secretary of State’s published policy. It is not made out he will be unable to obtain a Laizer passer for such purposes.
43. The Appellant’s claims as to why he could not have contact with family in Iraq were shown to lack credibility and I find he has not discharged the burden of proof upon him to show that he does not have contact with his family, or that family will be unwilling or unable to assist him by meeting him at the airport and enabling him to re-establish his life within Iraq. It was also not made out that they will not be able to make an appointment with the Appellant’s local CSA office to enable him to attend the same very shortly after the date he is returned from the UK to enable him to provide his biometrics and obtain his INID, if required.
44. In conclusion, I am not satisfied the Appellant has discharged the burden of proof upon him to the required standard to show that he is entitled to a grant of international protection on any basis. His claims in relation to lack of documentation lack credibility.
Notice of Decision
45. Appeal dismissed.

C J Hanson

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

28 May 2025