Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2024-005490
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/58199/2023
LP/05703/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 7th of July 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HIRST

Between

AI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Nnamani, instructed by Howe & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms Isherwood, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 29 April 2026

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

Introduction and summary
1. This is a rehearing of the Appellant’s appeal against the decision of the Respondent dated 29 September 2023 refusing his asylum and human rights claim.
2. The Appellant is a dual national of Turkey and Brazil. He is a supporter of the Gülen movement and has been found by the First-tier Tribunal to be at risk of persecution in Turkey on grounds of his political opinion.
3. For the reasons set out below I have decided that if returned to Brazil the Appellant faces a real risk of extradition to Turkey in breach of the Refugee Convention. I have further found that if returned to Brazil the Appellant faces a real risk of detention pending extradition proceedings, in breach of his Article 3 ECHR rights. I therefore allow the appeal on asylum and human rights grounds.
Background
4. The Appellant is a dual national of Turkey and Brazil. He arrived in the UK on 13 June 2022 and claimed asylum on arrival. The basis of his claim was that he feared persecution in Turkey due to his political opinion as a supporter of the Gülen movement and feared refoulement from Brazil due to an extradition request from Turkey.
5. The Appellant’s asylum claim was refused on 29 September 2023 and his appeal against that decision was dismissed by the First-tier Tribunal on 18 September 2024. The First-tier Tribunal found that the Appellant was a member of the Gülen movement and had a well-founded fear of persecution in Turkey, and that the Turkish government had requested the Appellant’s extradition from Brazil. However, the First-tier Tribunal found that there was not a real risk that if returned to Brazil the Appellant would be extradited from Brazil to Turkey.
6. Permission to appeal was granted by the Upper Tribunal on 12 September 2025 and on 12 February 2026 I set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and directed that the appeal be reheard in the Upper Tribunal with some findings preserved. The remaking hearing took place on 29 April 2026.
Evidence at the hearing
7. The Appellant gave oral evidence in English. He adopted his witness statements dated 19 July 2022 and 29 February 2024 and was cross-examined.
8. Three witnesses attended the hearing to give evidence in support of the Appellant: Samet Cobanoglu, Gulomjon Jumaniyazov and Serife Mammedov, all of whom were members of the Gulen Movement and known to the Appellant in Brazil. Like the Appellant, Mr Mammedov and Mr Cobanoglu are dual Turkish and Brazilian nationals; Mr Jumaniyazov is a dual national of Brazil and Uzbekistan. All three witnesses fled to the UK and claimed asylum on a similar basis to the Appellant and all three were granted refugee status following successful appeals to the First-tier Tribunal.
9. I accept their evidence as truthful. However, none of the three witnesses had independent or expert knowledge relevant to the risk of extradition from Brazil, and none had independent knowledge of the Appellant’s individual case beyond what he had told them. The determinations of the First-tier Tribunal in their cases are not binding on me and do not create any factual precedent. Whilst I accept their evidence, it does not assist me in determining the issues in the Appellant’s individual case and I have not given it weight.
10. The Appellant also relied on letters from Veli Koksal, Saban Inci, Recep Kadam and Abdullah Boztas, all of whom are Turkish-Brazilian nationals who were granted refugee status in the UK, the US and Canada on the basis of similar claims to that of the Appellant. Those individuals did not attend or give oral evidence. I accept the contents of the letters and the supporting documents as true. However, the letters do not assist me in determining the issues in this appeal and I have not given any weight to them.
11. The consolidated appeal bundle ran to 343 pages. During the hearing Ms Isherwood sent me links to a series of articles referred to in the Respondent’s refusal letter, together with links to two additional articles, which she invited me to read and consider. I have carefully considered all of the documentary and oral evidence, which I address in more detail below.
Legal framework
12. The Appellant claimed asylum on 13 June 2022 and the provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 do not apply to his claim. To succeed in his asylum appeal, the Appellant must show a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason (race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, political opinion).
13. The burden of proof is upon the Appellant and the standard of proof applicable to both the Appellant's asylum claim and his Article 3 claim is the lower standard applicable to protection claims, namely a “real risk” or “reasonable degree of likelihood” (Karanakaran v SSHD [2000] 3 All ER 449). The ‘real risk’ threshold is significantly below the civil standard of proof, and even a 10% chance of persecution may suffice: MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216, [2023] Imm AR 713 at §52.
Issues in the appeal
14. It is not in dispute that the Appellant is a dual national of Turkey and Brazil. The following findings of the First-tier Tribunal were preserved and were also not in dispute at this hearing:
a. the Appellant is a member of the Gülen movement, which has been designated by Turkey as a terrorist organisation (‘FETO’);
b. the Appellant is believed by the Turkish authorities to be a leading figure in FETO;
c. the Appellant is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the Turkish authorities and would be liable to be arrested and face charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation if returned to Turkey;
d. the Turkish government has requested the Appellant’s extradition from Brazil to face charges of being a member of an armed terrorist organisation;
e. the Appellant has a well-founded fear of persecution in Turkey by reason of his political opinion.
15. The parties agreed that the issues for determination at this hearing were as follows:
a. Is there a reasonable degree of likelihood that the Appellant would be extradited to Turkey if returned to Brazil?
b. Is there a reasonable degree of likelihood that the Appellant would be detained in Brazil? If so, would he be exposed to detention conditions breaching his rights under Article 3 ECHR?
c. Is the Appellant at risk of harm in Brazil from Turkish agents or supporters? If so, would the Brazilian authorities be able and willing to provide sufficient protection, and/or could the Appellant reasonably relocate within Brazil to avoid the risk of harm?
Discussion and decision
The risk of extradition from Brazil to Turkey
16. The Appellant has been found by the First-tier Tribunal to have a genuine and well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of his political opinion in Turkey, and accordingly he cannot be refouled to Turkey from the UK. However, the determination of the Appellant's refugee status by the First-tier Tribunal is not binding on the Brazilian authorities. The question then is whether, if the Appellant is returned to Brazil, there is a real risk that he will be refouled to Turkey by the Brazilian authorities in compliance with Turkey’s extradition request.
17. The Appellant contends that there is a real risk of refoulement via extradition to Turkey. The Respondent does not accept that there is a real risk of extradition, and relies on previous cases where Brazil has refused extradition requests by Turkey for members of the Gulenist movement, including the cases of Ali Sipahi in 2019 and Yakub Sagar in 2022 to which the articles relied on by the Respondent refer.
18. The appeal bundle contains the extradition request in respect of Yakup Sagar. Like the Appellant, Mr Sagar’s extradition was sought on the basis of the alleged offence of “being a member of an armed criminal organisation” contrary to article 314/2 of the Criminal Code of Turkey. Mr Sagar was also accused of aggravated fraud, financing terrorism, attempting to destroy the state of Turkey and attempting to destroy the constitutional order of Turkey.
19. I was not presented with the extradition request in respect of Mr Sipahi; the document in the bundle which was indexed as the extradition request was in fact the legal opinion of the Brazilian Deputy Attorney General on the continuation of Mr Sipahi’s pre-trial detention pending the extradition hearing. It is apparent from that document that Mr Sipahi was also accused of being a member of a terrorist organisation.
20. The Appellant relies on a legal opinion by Adriano Pistorelo, an immigration lawyer in Brazil. His opinion identifies three key differences between the Appellant’s case and those of the previous cases where extradition to Turkey was refused by the Brazilian courts, including Mr Sipahi and Mr Sagar. First, the Appellant naturalised as a Brazilian citizen after the date of the alleged offences in Turkey and his extradition is not therefore barred by the Brazilian constitution as it had been for other individuals. Second, the principle of duality, which requires that the alleged acts in respect of which extradition is sought must be recognised as a crime both in Brazil and in the applicant country, is satisfied following the enactment of the Brazilian Anti-Terrorism Law in March 2016, which was not the case in other extradition cases dealt with by the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court. Third, the Appellant was in Turkey during the attempted coup on 15 July 2016 whereas other individuals whose extradition was sought had been on British soil and had not travelled to Turkey for a considerable time.
21. Although Mr Pistorelo’s opinion does not comply with the Practice Direction on the format of expert reports, his legal expertise in matters of Brazilian extradition and constitutional law was accepted by the Respondent. Ms Isherwood criticised the report for not explaining why the Appellant's naturalisation would not act as a barrier to extradition; however, the report explains that it was because the Appellant naturalised as a Brazilian citizen after the date of the alleged offences in Turkey, and the Brazilian constitution does not therefore bar his extradition as it would if he had naturalised prior to the offences. Ms Isherwood also questioned Mr Pistorelo’s view that the Appellant's presence in Turkey at the time of the attempted coup was a relevant factor when assessing the risk of extradition, since his presence in Turkey was not mentioned in the extradition request. Mr Pistorelo explains that the other individuals whose extradition was refused had been in the UK when the coup attempt occurred and had not travelled to Turkey for a considerable time. His view is that the Turkish authorities are likely to highlight the Appellant’s presence in Turkey as a factor during the extradition process, and that that will be a significant disadvantage for the Appellant.
22. I give Mr Pistorelo’s opinion full weight and accept his view that the Appellant’s case has factors which differentiate it from those of other individuals where extradition to Turkey has been refused by the Brazilian courts. I accept that those factors are significant, not least because it is apparent from the articles relied on by the Respondent that the date of naturalisation, and the lack of duality, were material factors in the refusal of extradition in Mr Sagar and Mr Sipahi’s cases.
23. On the basis of his report, and the differentiating factors in the Appellant’s case, I am satisfied that there is a real risk that if returned to Brazil, Brazilian authorities will grant Turkey’s extradition request and that the Appellant will be refouled to Turkey in breach of the Refugee Convention.
Risk of detention
24. As I have found that the Appellant faces a real risk of refoulement to Turkey if returned to Brazil, it is not necessary for me to determine the other issues in the appeal, but for the sake of completeness I address them in the alternative.
25. The Appellant contends that if returned to Brazil he faces a real-risk of detention pending the extradition proceedings, and that such detention would breach his rights under Article 3 ECHR.
26. There is some evidence in the appeal bundle relevant to the risk of detention. First is the translated copy of the decision of the Brazilian Federal District court dated 29 November 2021 authorising Mr Sagar’s arrest pending consideration of the extradition request. That decision states (p252 of the bundle) that:
“Pursuant to art.208 of the Internal Regulations of this Court, provisional detention is an essential requirement in the processing of the extradition request, without which the analysis of the extradition claim is unfeasible. In fact, it is established in the jurisprudence of this Court that provisional detention with a view to extradition “constitutes a requirement for the procedure of an extradition action, not to be confused with the preventive segregation referred to in the Code of Criminal Procedure”…”
27. Second are the translated documents relating to Mr Sipahi’s pre-extradition detention. The Deputy Attorney General’s opinion dated 16 April 2019 notes that Mr Sipahi’s pre-trial detention was authorised by the Federal Supreme Court on 19 March 2019. It notes that the Federal Supreme Court will revoke pre-trial detention in exceptional cases, but that the purpose of pre-trial detention in extradition cases is to ensure that extradition is enforceable.
28. The objective evidence, including in particular the articles relied on by the Respondent, indicates that Mr Sagar was detained for 19 days before being released on judicial probation. Mr Sipahi was detained from 19 March 2019 until the Supreme Court rejected the extradition request on 6 August 2019. Another article by the Stockholm Centre for Freedom refers to a third individual, Mustafa Göktepe, who was also detained for approximately a week before being released by the Supreme Court on the basis that as he had naturalised as Brazilian before the alleged offences he could not be extradited to Turkey.
29. Both parties relied on the Country Policy and Information Note (‘CPIN’)1 dated June 2025, which addresses arrest and detention at section 6. The CPIN primarily focuses on detention on remand and following criminal sentencing, but notes (6.1.2, 6.3.5) that the law does not impose a maximum period of pre-trial detention. In relation to prison conditions, the CPIN notes (6.3.1-6.3.6) that there are five federal prisons, which are used for the most dangerous offenders; those have fewer inmates and are not overcrowded. There is however a chronic shortage of space in state prison facilities, resulting in poor and sometimes life threatening conditions with violence, abuse by prison guards, poor quality of food and hygiene conditions, and lack of access to health care. A 2024 report by Conectas, cited at 6.3.6, refers to torture and cruel treatment in prisons being commonplace, with frequent reports of physical and psychological violence and medical neglect; federal government data indicated that there were 649,600 inmates in a system with a capacity for 482,900. There was “a lack of basic sanitation, inadequate ventilation, and insufficient food”.
30. I am satisfied that there is a real risk that the Appellant would be detained in Brazil pending extradition proceedings. The references in the court documents to the requirement for pre-trial detention in extradition cases, and to such detention only being revoked in exceptional cases, support a conclusion that pre-trial detention is standard, and indeed required by the internal regulations of the federal courts, in extradition cases. I note that in the cases of Mr Sagar, Mr Sipahi and Mr Göktepe, pre-trial detention ranged from a week to over four months notwithstanding that extradition was subsequently refused and that there were legal barriers under Brazilian law to extradition in those cases. In the Appellant’s case, where the legal barriers to extradition (naturalisation prior to the alleged offence and/or the principle of duality) are absent, the risk of detention is if anything higher. I conclude that there is a real risk of detention pending extradition proceedings.
31. If the Appellant were to be detained, there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that the conditions of his detention would breach Article 3 ECHR. The CPIN indicates that the conditions in Brazilian state prisons are inhumane, and in particular cites the lack of space, access to basic sanitation, inadequate ventilation and insufficient food together with frequent violence between inmates and by prison guards. It is right that the CPIN distinguishes between state and federal facilities, and also refers to the possibility of home detention in criminal matters. However, there is nothing in the CPIN or the other evidence before me which indicates that individuals detained pending extradition requests are held in federal facilities rather than state prisons, or that they are granted home detention. I therefore conclude that to the lower standard there is a real risk of a breach of Article 3 arising from the conditions of pre-trial detention in Brazil pending extradition proceedings.
The risk of harm from Turkish agents
32. The Appellant claims that he would be at risk from Turkish agents in Brazil. He relies on two incidents. In his second statement dated 29 February 2024, the Appellant states that in Brazil he met a Turkish diplomat who followed him and knew his name; the diplomat mentioned details of the Appellant’s friends and indirectly threatened him, stating that nothing bad would happen to the Appellant if he behaved well. In the second incident, the Appellant claims that whilst at a lecture two strangers followed him without speaking to him; he knew they were Turkish agents because two years later he saw one of the men at a Turkish restaurant and the restaurant manager identified him as an employee of the cultural association of the Turkish government. The Appellant states that neither incident was reported to the police but that the first incident was reported to the department for foreign affairs. Neither incident was referred to in the Appellant’s first witness statement.
33. Although the Appellant has been found to be a credible witness, there was a distinct lack of detail to his description of both incidents in his witness statement and oral evidence. In any event, even accepting the Appellant’s account, the two incidents on which he relies do not even to the lower standard demonstrate a real risk of persecution or serious harm to the Article 3 standard. The incidents pre-date the Appellant’s departure from Brazil by at least 2 years and there is no evidence that beyond feeling intimidated at the time, the Appellant or his family members came to serious harm either at the time of the incidents or in the intervening period prior to the Appellant’s departure.
34. There is no other evidence before me which suggests that the adverse interest of the Turkish authorities in supporters of the Gülenist movement extends beyond politically-motivated extradition requests to directly tracking or targeting opponents in other countries. I find that the Appellant does not face a real risk of persecution or Article 3 harm from Turkish agents in Brazil.

Notice of Decision
The Appellant’s appeal is allowed on asylum and human rights grounds.

L Hirst

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

29 June 2026