Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-001189
First-tier Tribunal No:
PA/02885/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 24 April 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK

Between

DR
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms C. Bayati, Instructed by Nag Law Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms J. Isherwood, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 10 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
1. The First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) made an anonymity direction in this appeal because the appellant has made a claim for international protection and I have not been asked to set that direction aside.
2. The appellant is a citizen of Sri Lanka, born in Sri Lanka in 1970. He came to the UK as a visitor in 1999 and 2004 and then returned as a student between 2005 and 2008 and again between 2009 and 2014. In 2014, he made an in-time application for further leave to remain on family and private life grounds, but this was refused and he returned to Sri Lanka voluntarily in early January 2015.
3. The appellant returned to the UK on a visit visa on 22 September 2020. He contacted the respondent to claim asylum on 18 January 2021 and his claim was registered at the Asylum Screening Unit on 27 January 2021.
4. The respondent refused the appellant’s asylum claim on 12 August 2024. She accepted his nationality and identity but none of the other material facts of his claim. The appellant appealed against that decision and the FtT dismissed his appeal in a decision dated 31 October 2024. In a decision promulgated on 9 October 2025, the Upper Tribunal set aside that decision with no findings about his protection claim preserved.
5. This decision is the remaking, under section 12 (2) (b) (ii) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, of the FtT’s decision.
The appellant’s asylum claim
6. The basis of the appellant’s claim is set out in his statements of 8 February 2021 and 1 March 2021, his asylum interview of 18 April 2024 and his statement of 22 January 2026.
7. In summary, he says that he is of Sinhalese ethnicity but his wife is Tamil. They married in 2003 and lived together in a city in the Western Province. Following a ceasefire in 2002, one of his wife’s distant cousins moved from the Northern Province to their city. His name was R. The appellant was at that time employed by SriLankan Airlines, and he helped R find a job at the airport. He and his wife also allowed R to move into their rented home.
8. The appellant came to the UK for studies 2005, together with his wife. He arranged for the tenancy agreement to be transferred into R’s name. When the appellant returned to Sri Lanka with his wife their infant child in 2008, they moved back into their previous home and resumed living together with R.
9. On 28 October 2008, an unidentified group of men came to their home and after confirming R’s identity, forced him into a white van without number plates and drove away. The appellant says a man in military uniform was driving the van. The next day, the appellant filed a police complaint against the abduction, but the police did not investigate. The appellant has submitted what he says is a copy of that complaint.
10. In September 2009, the appellant returned to the UK to continue his studies. In May 2010, President Mahinda Rajapaksa established a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to investigate human rights violations during the civil war, which had ended the previous year. R’s relatives contacted the appellant in the UK to ask him to support their complaint to the LLRC about R’s disappearance. The appellant agreed, and in 2010, while on a visit to Sri Lanka, he delivered a statement to the LLRC. The appellant has adduced a document purporting to be his statement to the LLRC, dated 13 December 2010, and a formal confirmation of receipt of the statement, issued on the headed paper of the LLRC and dated 30 December 2010. The appellant returned to the UK after a few weeks. He next visited Sri Lanka for a few weeks in December 2011, when the LLRC published its report. He was disappointed in the result.
11. In 2013, the police left a notice with the appellant’s father, summoning the appellant to the police station. He duly returned to Sri Lanka in March and reported to the police. They accused him of supporting terrorists and demanded that he retract his statement to the LLRC. He was detained for one night but released after agreeing to the police’s demands. He returned to the UK shortly afterwards, but he did not withdraw his statement to the LLRC as he had promised.
12. The appellant held student leave valid through 25 February 2014, and on 24 February 2014, he applied for leave to remain on family and private life grounds. That application was refused and the appellant appealed. While the appeal was pending, the appellant returned to Sri Lanka voluntarily. He says that this was because of a change in government. The new President, Maithripala Sirisena, was promoting reconciliation and inviting people “like me” to return to the country.
13. There was another change of government in Sri Lanka in November 2019, when former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected president. Parliamentary elections followed on 05 August 2020. In the course of the election campaign, in July 2020, the appellant complained to the police against one of President Rajapaksa’s supporters by the name of Nimal Lanza, who he says disturbing the peace in the local area by his method of campaigning. Pres. Rajapaksa’s party won a Parliamentary majority in the 5 August 2020 elections. On 18 August 2020, the appellant was summoned to the police station and threatened. The police connected him to his previous complaint to the LLRC and told him that “it would not be easy for me with the present government” because President Rajapaksa was the “God Father” of ‘white vans’” (such as had been used for abductions during the civil war, including R’s). The appellant was detained on remand for 14 days and then bailed with a requirement to report to the police monthly. He left for the UK on 20 September 2020, prior to his first reporting date.
14. In late August 2024, the appellant’s wife sent him what purport to be certified copies of court documents from the ongoing criminal proceedings against him before his local Magistrate’s Court. The main document contains a chronological series of entries setting out the history of a criminal complaint brought against the appellant by the Officer-in-Charge (“OIC”) of the city’s Terrorist Investigation Division (“TID”). They show that the OIC filed a report against the appellant in May 2013, accusing him of having assisted the LTTE by providing his wife’s relative R [full name given] with accommodation and helping him obtain employment at the airport, as well as by providing information to LTTE terrorists in exchange for payment and helping them flee through the airport. The appellant was also said to have “connections with LTTE terrorist European Diaspora” and had made a complaint to the LLRC about R’s enforced disappearance, for which he had been paid. A further entry in February 2014 states that the case was being re-evaluated, pursuant to a government policy to re-evaluate all terrorism cases filed against who those had not been charged with being combatants. In October 2014, the Ministry of Justice gave “the green light for this matter to go ahead”. In January 2015, however, the prosecution was halted pursuant to a government campaign to promote reconciliation. Then in August 2020, the prosecution was resumed, and in December 2020, the Military Intelligence Unit informed the court that the appellant had left the country, as confirmed by the Controller General of Immigration and Emigration. A warrant was issued for the appellant’s arrest on 11 December 2020, and there is a copy of that warrant.
15. There is also a three-page statement from the Chief Inspector of the TID, dated 11 December 2020. This sets out the allegations about R’s role in the LTTE, the appellant’s role in providing him with accommodation and finding him employment, and the appellant’s other paid support for the LTTE. The report also says that the appellant had
“made false statements to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) condemning the government and its armed forces […] We found out that [the appellant] has made this complaint as a contract from LTTE terrorists.”
16. The appellant has submitted the DHL envelope in which he says these documents were sent to him from Sri Lanka by his wife on 29 August 2024 and a statement from an attorney in Sri Lanka, dated 15 August 2014, confirming that she had obtained the court documents on the instructions of the appellant’s wife and setting out briefly how she had done so. There is also a copy of her Bar Association of Sri Lanka ID
17. In January 2026, the appellant’s solicitors contacted a different attorney in Sri Lanka to request that he independently confirm whether the document obtained in 2024 were true copies of genuine documents held on file at the Magistrate’s Court. That solicitor has provided a brief expert report confirming that the documents are “genuine certified copies” of documents on the court file. As proof of his qualifications, he submitted a copy of his Bar Association of Sri Lanka ID and the official announcement of his enrolment as an Attorney-at-Law published in the Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in 2010.
18. The appellant says that the police continue to visit his family’s home every two-three months, and he has submitted a video recording purporting to be of one such visit, which he says took place on 11 December 2025. His son has submitted a statement confirming that he took the video.
The respondent’s position
19. In the refusal decision of 12 August 2024, the respondent rejected the entirety of the appellant’s account. She found that his account was inconsistent with his voluntary returns to Sri Lanka and the fact that he had faced no issues in Sri Lanka between 2013 and 2019. She also found that his credibility had been damaged by: his failure to declare that he was seeking protection in his visit visa application or to claim asylum promptly on his return to the UK; his 2014 family and private life application; and his failure to provide documents corroborating the criminal proceedings against him. It was not plausible that the police would have summoned the applicant in 2013 to interrogate him about the report he made about his cousin’s abduction in 2008 (this appears to be a misunderstanding; he says he was interrogated in about his statement to the LLRC of December 2010, but the same logic would apply on these facts). Furthermore, unidentified “external evidence” showed that while the Sri Lankan state commonly filed false charges against members of opposition parties, these were “routinely thrown out by the courts”.
20. However, the respondent accepted that if the material facts of the appellant’s claim were accepted, the appellant would be at risk of persecution and neither state protection nor internal relocation would be available.
21. In the respondent’s review, the respondent found that the applicant’s credibility was been damaged by: his ability to produce the arrest warrant and other court documents, because he had said at his substantive interview that he would not be able to obtain a copy of the arrest warrant; the fact that his wife had remained in Sri Lanka “without issue”; the lack of evidence of any ongoing contact “to his wife by the authorities”; and his voluntary return to Sri Lanka in 2015. The respondent also noted that the court documents were inconsistent with the appellant’s arrival in the UK in September 2021, because they stated that he had fled the country prior to December 2020. It was also not plausible that the appellant would have been able to leave the country after the arrest warrant had been issued. These final two points appear to have been based on a mistake of fact about the date of the appellant’s arrival in the UK (22 September 2020) and the dated of the warrant (11 December 2020).
Preserved findings from the FtT decision
22. The following findings of the FtT are preserved:
(i) The evidence of the appellant’s mental health did not establish that he met the definition of a “seriously ill person” set out in AM (Zimbabwe);
(ii) There was no evidence that the appellant would be unable to access mental health care on return to Sri Lanka; and
(iii) Article 8 is not engaged. The appellant’s wife and son are in Sri Lanka and he has no family in the UK. Although he had resided in the UK since 2020, he was not employed or studying and no friends or acquaintances had attended the hearing. Mere residence was insufficient to establish that article 8 was engaged. Alternatively, even if article 8 was engaged, there was no evidence that the appellant’s removal would have unjustifiably harsh consequences or that there would be very significant obstacles to the appellant’s reintegration in Sri Lanka.
The hearing
23. The following documents were before the Upper Tribunal:
(i) A document filed by the appellant the day before the hearing, consisting of a link to a YouTube video and copies of the cover page and one internal page from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka Lawyers’ Directory, 2010;
(ii) The appellant’s skeleton argument, filed on 23 January 2026;
(iii) The appellant’s supplementary bundle, filed on 23 January 2026;
(iv) The appellant’s bundle prepared for the error of law hearing, filed on 27 August 2025; and
(v) The decision of the Upper Tribunal of 9 October 2025.
24. Ms Isherwood had only had sight of the bundle of 27 August 2025, so I rose to allow her time to consider the additional material. Before the hearing resumed, she confirmed that she had had sufficient time to prepare.
25. Ms Isherwood confirmed that the respondent was not asking me to depart from the country guidance case of KK and RS (Sur place activities: risk) Sri Lanka CG [2021] UKUT 00130 or resiling from the position taken in the refusal decision that if the material facts of the appellant’s account were true, he would be at risk of persecution on return to Sri Lanka.
26. On direct examination, the appellant adopted his most recent statement of 22 January 2026 and all of his previous the statements, which were referred to within it. Ms Bayati then accessed a YouTube video on her laptop and played it to the appellant. Ms Isherwood and I were able to view the video on our laptops at the same time. The appellant explained that his son had taken the video on his phone and sent it to him by WhatsApp.
27. The video showed a woman standing in the doorway of a house, speaking to a man in uniform. The audio of the video was poor quality, and the interpreter said that what appeared to be subtitles in Sinhalese made no sense and could not be translated. She suggested that they might have been auto-generated. After listening to the audio several times, she confirmed that only the woman was speaking, and that she had said,
“Yes because of that. He is not here. He is not living in Sri Lanka. I will pass the message. When he comes, I will do that. So then we can sort it out. That will take time.”
She clarified that Sinhalese uses gender neutral personal pronouns, such that translated literally, the woman had not said that “he” was not here.
28. Ms Isherwood then cross-examined the appellant at considerable length. The recording of the hearing stands as the record of proceedings, and I only provide a summary here.
29. Ms Isherwood began by cross-examining the appellant about the YouTube video. He confirmed that the date of the visit had been 11 December 2025. He had uploaded it to YouTube on 16 January 2026, in preparation for the appeal hearing. He had done so at that time because his solicitors had told them this was necessary in order for the Tribunal to be able to view it.
30. In answer to a question from Ms Isherwood, the appellant insisted that his wife had mentioned his name in the video. The court, and the interpreter, then listened to the video several further times, with the appellant indicating when his name was mentioned. I considered that I could hear his name mentioned by his wife, but the interpreter said she could not hear it clearly. In answer to further questions, the appellant accepted that the video was short, and that only the police officer’s back could be seen, but he explained that his son had taken the video secretly, without the police officer’s permission. He had not had an opportunity to take a longer video, or a video of any of the other times the police had come to his house. He accepted that his son had not said in his witness statement that he had taken the video secretly, and that his son had not provided details of other visits from the police in his brief statement, although he said they came “frequently”. He accepted that there was no updating statement from his wife.
31. Ms Isherwood then confirmed with the appellant that he had been able to leave the country travelling on his own passport after his brief detention in 2013. The appellant explained that he had only been detained for one night, unofficially, and as there had been no warrant for his arrest, there was no reason he would not have been able to travel.
32. Ms Isherwood turned to the appellant’s statement to the LLRC. He had prepared the statement in Sri Lanka, in December 2010. He had written it in English because he had lived in England and could write English, and the LLRC was an internationally recognised entity and he wanted the statement to be able to be read internationally.
33. Ms Isherwood put it to the appellant that he did not say in the statement that it was addressed to the Commission, and the appellant said he did not remember if he had, but he remembered handing over to them in person. They were located in Houghton Place in Colombo 7. He went there “physically” and spoke to a clerk, saying he wanted to hand over a report. He was asked to wait for some time. Then an officer appeared, and he handed the report to the officer.
34. In fact, as Ms Bayati pointed out in submissions, the statement is clearly addressed to the LLRC in its final paragraph.
35. In response to further questions, the appellant said that the LLRC’s letter acknowledging his statement had been sent by post to his home in Sri Lanka. He did not have the envelope in which it had arrived, nor the envelope in which his wife had sent it to him in the UK at the time.
36. Ms Isherwood then put it to the appellant several times that he had remained in the UK without leave after his last period of student leave expired. The appellant explained that he had not. He had made an in-time application for further leave to remain outside the rules, partly because he wanted to remain in the UK for his graduation, and partly because he was waiting to see what would happen in the Sri Lankan elections scheduled for January 2015. His application had been refused and he had appealed, but when the government “began changing”, he contacted the Home Office to withdraw his appeal and return to Sri Lanka.
37. Ms Isherwood then put it to the appellant that he had travelled to and from Sri Lanka even after giving the statement to the LLRC, and had not had any problems with the authorities. The appellant confirmed that he had returned to Sri Lanka in 2011, when the LLRC published its recommendations. He did “not get any proper answer from them”, but nor did he have any problems with the authorities. He had remained for around three weeks.
38. Ms Isherwood put it to him that he had travelled back and forth to Sri Lanka a number of times after that, and he replied that he had travelled back and forth only once, in March 2013. He had stayed less than a month, returning in April 2013. He then had not returned until January 2015.
39. Ms Isherwood pointed out that according to the Magistrate’s court records, a complaint of involvement in terrorism had been brought against him in May 2013. He said that he had not known about that at the time, because there was no arrest warrant issued against him.
40. Ms Isherwood then rehearsed the chronology of the complaint against the appellant, as set out the court records. She put it to him that it showed that the authorities were not interested in him, because they had not been looking for him in 2014 and had not stopped him at the airport in 2015. The appellant agreed that he did not have any issues in 2015, and explained that this was because a new president had made an announcement inviting people like him to return to Sri Lanka.
41. Ms Isherwood asked again why he had not been stopped at the airport when leaving Sri Lanka, if there was an allegation against him that he was involved in terrorism. The appellant replied, “Basically what they want me to do in 2013 was withdraw the LLRC statement, so I pretended to withdraw it and I went back” to the UK. I asked him to clarify what he meant by pretending to withdraw it, and he said that told the police he would do so. He did not feel that he could go against the police while at the police station, where they could do “anything” to him: “So I just said, yes, I’ll do that, and I came out”.
42. Ms Isherwood put it to the appellant that this meant that he was not on a stop list of watch list at that time, and the appellant agreed.
43. Ms Isherwood asked the appellant to explain why the government’s interest in him had increased in 2020, and he replied that the main reason was the change in government. He added that if he had had an issue “like that” at the time, he would not have returned to Sri Lanka in 2015. He had been in the UK with both his wife and his son, and his son had been born here and could have eventually have become eligible to become a British citizen, but they chose to return to Sri Lanka. He did not leave at the end of his studies because the old government was still in power. He did not claim at that time asylum either, because his intention had always been to return to the Sri Lanka at the end of his studies. He had said this from his very first student visa application.
44. Ms Isherwood asked the appellant why he had not provided evidence of his work at the airport from before 2015, if it was an important part of his case that he had helped R get work at the airport in 2008. He pointed out that he had helped R get work at the airport in 2003, and that he had presented evidence of his work at the airport in all of his visa applications, going back to 1999.
45. In response to further questions, he said that he helped R get a job as a baggage loader and that his employer had approached him when they had concerns about R, because he had recommended him.
46. A series of further questions followed, in which the appellant confirmed that he had bought his current home in 2017, and that he had transferred the lease on the shared apartment to R when they left for the UK in 2005. His wife and son had returned to Sri Lanka in January 2008 and he had returned in May of that year. They had moved back in with R but he had not put his name back on the lease.
47. Ms Isherwood asked the appellant to confirm that he had never been tortured and mistreated while in detention. She asked if he had paid a bribe to be released from detention, and he said that he did not think so. His father had paid a lawyer a fee for his professional services in obtaining bail. He did not know if the lawyer had used any of that money to pay a bribe, but it was possible. His lawyer had told him that he had a better chance of being released at that time, due to the COVID-19 emergency.
48. Ms Isherwood asked the appellant to confirm that there had been no further statement from the lawyer who had obtained the court documents in 2024, and he replied that there was not. They had obtained a new statement from an independent lawyer.
49. The appellant accepted the he had not told the truth to the entry clearance officer when he applied for a visit visa in 2020. He did not intend to return to Sri Lanka at the end of his visit. He had not claimed asylum at the airport on arrival, because he wanted to be safely inside the country and to consult a solicitor first. He accepted that he had not consulted a solicitor immediately.
50. Finally, Ms Isherwood asked the appellant to confirm that he has no ties to politics or the government of Sri Lanka, and that he is not named in any of the articles about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka that he had submitted at the time of his asylum interview. She put it to him that his wife had not explained in her August 2024 letter how she had obtained the court documents. He replied that she had obtained them from a solicitor and then posted them to him.
51. I rose for lunch, and when the hearing resumed, Ms Isherwood informed me that she had no further questions for the appellant.
52. I then asked the appellant why he had agreed to voluntary departure at the end of December 2014, if the Sri Lanka elections were not held until 5 January 2015. He said that he “knew what was going to happen” because the government was very unpopular, and he and his wife wanted to return in time to vote.
53. I then heard submissions from Ms Isherwood and Ms Bayati. I have taken them into account and will refer to any material matters in my discussion below.
The legal framework
54. The appellant claimed asylum in the UK in January 2021, prior to the introduction of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The standard of proof that applies to all the elements of his claim is therefore that of a “reasonable likelihood”.
55. It is not in dispute that the appellant’s claim engages the Refugee Convention because he claims to fear persecution from the state because of his imputed political opinion as a supporter of the LTTE and his actual political activity in making a statement to the LLRC and failing to withdraw it.
56. The current country guidance relevant to the appellant’s claim is KK and RS (Sur place activities: risk) Sri Lanka CG [2021] UKUT 00130. Although this was promulgated in May 2021, I must follow it unless there is good reason for not doing so. It is for the party who seeks to persuade a tribunal to depart from country guidance to adduce evidence justifying the departure. Roba (OLF - MB confirmed) (CG) [2022] UKUT 00001. As noted above, Ms Isherwood did not seek to persuade me to depart from KK and RS. Moreover, in her current Country policy and information note: Tamil separatism, Sri Lanka, published in August 2025, the respondent took the position:
“While there have been significant political changes in Sri Lanka since the country guidance of KK and RS (Sur place activities, risk) was heard, the country information in this note does not indicate that there are ‘very strong grounds supported by cogent evidence’ to depart from these findings.”
57. Much of KK and RS concerns risks arising out of involvement in Tamil separatist activities in the diaspora and thus is not relevant to the appellant. I consider, however, the following to be relevant:
“(1) The current Government of Sri Lanka (“GoSL”) is an authoritarian regime whose core focus is to prevent any potential resurgence of a separatist movement within Sri Lanka which has as its ultimate goal the establishment of Tamil Eelam. […]
“(13) GoSL operates a general electronic database which stores all relevant information held on an individual, whether this has been obtained from the United Kingdom or from within Sri Lanka itself. This database is accessible at the SLHC, BIA and anywhere else within Sri Lanka. Its contents will in general determine the immediate or short-term consequences for a returnee.
“(14) A stop list and watch list are still in use. These are derived from the general electronic database. […]
“(16) Those in possession of a valid passport will only be questioned on arrival if they appear on either the stop list or the watch list. […]
“(18) Only those against whom there is an extant arrest warrant and/or a court order will appear on the stop list. Returnees falling within this category will be detained at the airport. […]
“(26) Individuals who have given evidence to the LLRC implicating the Sri Lankan security forces, armed forces, or the Sri Lankan authorities in alleged war crimes, also face a reasonable likelihood of being detained after their return. It is for the individual concerned to establish that GoSL will be aware of the provision of such evidence.
“(27) There is a reasonable likelihood that those detained by the Sri Lankan authorities will be subjected to persecutory treatment within the meaning of the Refugee Convention and ill-treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR.
“(28) Internal relocation is not an option within Sri Lanka for a person at risk from the authorities.”
Discussion
58. I found the appellant to be a credible witness, and I now give my reasons for doing so.
59. I am required by section 8 of the Asylum (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 to consider whether the appellant’s conduct has damaged his credibility. I do not consider that the appellant’s false statements in applying for visit visas in 2020 damaged his credibility at all. It has been recognised since the Refugee Convention was drafted that genuine refugees often have to use deception to reach a place of safety. As Ms Isherwood acknowledged in her submissions, the appellant’s visa application would obviously have been refused had he disclosed its true purpose. Nor do I consider that the appellant’s credibility was significantly undermined by his failure to claim asylum on arrival at the airport. It is reasonable for asylum-seekers in genuine fear to decide to wait until they are within the country and have obtained legal advice before claiming asylum, because it is reasonable for them to consider that this will increase their chances obtaining protection. However, I do consider that the appellant has never clearly explained why he waited from September 2020 until January 2021 to contact the respondent, and that this does damage his credibility.
60. However, taking a structured approach to credibility and viewing the evidence in the round, I find that this damage to the appellant’s credibility is outweighed by all of the other positive credibility indicators in this case. I note, first, that the appellant’s evidence has at all times been consistent. I have read the appellant’s evidence with care, and I have not found any internal inconsistencies in his account, between the different versions of that account that he has given over a considerable period of time, between that account and the contents documents he has adduced, or between that account and any external evidence. Nor has the respondent pointed to any inconsistencies.
61. I found the appellant an impressive witness. He was cross-examined at length and his answers were always unhesitating and clear, even when providing details he had never been asked before, such as how he submitted his statement to the LLRC or why he decided to return to Sri Lanka before the 2015 election. Nor does his evidence show any signs of exaggeration. He does not say he was ever mistreated while in detention, for example, and there is nothing apparently threatening in the conduct of the policeman in the YouTube video.
62. In her submissions, Mr Isherwood submitted that the appellant had not established that R had been abducted as he claimed. When I asked her the basis for this submission, she said that his account of the abduction lacked detail. She confirmed that there was no other reason for impugning the account.
63. I do not agree that the account lacked detail. The appellant has set out since his initial PIQ statement that the family was at home. He and R were watching TV downstairs, while his wife and child were upstairs. Unidentified men came into the house and asked for R. They then grabbed him by the collar and began to drag him from the house. The appellant asked them who they were and why they were taking R, but they refused to answer and told him to keep away. The men bundled R into a white van. There was a man in military uniform driving the van, and another man sitting in the back. The van had no number plates.
64. I consider this to be a sufficiently detailed account of a brief and probably terrifying event. I note, moreover, that the respondent put this account before the respondent in March 2021, three years before his substantive interview, and the interviewer specifically confirmed that they had read it. Yet he was asked no further questions about it either at the interview on or cross-examination before me. Nor did the respondent criticise the account as vague in her refusal decision.
65. The complex history of the Sri Lankan civil war and its aftermath have been set out in numerous country guidance cases and I will not repeat it here. I find that the appellant’s account is consistent with the broad outlines of that history, including: enforced “white van” disappearances during the civil war (see LP (LTTE area – Tamils – Colombo – risk?) Sri Lanka CG [2007] UKAIT 00076 and TK (Tamils – LP updated) Sri Lanka CG [2009] UKAIT 00049); the establishment of the LLRC, the authorities’ promise to implement its recommendations and failure to keep that promise, and the risk to those who had given evidence to it (GJ and others (post-civil war: returnees) Sri Lanka CG [2013] UKUT 00319 (IAC) at Headnote [7](c) and [330]-[334]); the reconciliation efforts made by President Sirisena (who was in office between 9 January 2015 and 18 November 2019) and the Sinhalese nationalist and authoritarian turn following first the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in November 2019 and then the Parliamentary elections of August 2020 (KK and RS at [324]-[328]).
66. I further find that the appellant’s account of the authorities’ treatment of him is plausible in light of this history. He was able to return to Sri Lanka in 2010 and 2011, while the LLRC was conducting its investigations and the government was still formally committed to cooperating with it. Indeed, some human rights organisations refused to cooperate with the LLRC because they did not consider it sufficiently independent, such that it is plausible that the appellant would not have been immediately targeted for giving evidence to it. By 2013, however, those who had given evidence to the LLRC could be at risk of persecution, according to the Upper Tribunal in GJ. In this context, it is plausible that the authorities released the appellant after he promised to withdraw his statement, but then opened an investigation against him after he left the country without doing so. It is further plausible that the charges against the appellant were reviewed and then pursued in 2014, halted again in January 2015 with the change of government, and then resumed again in August 2020, after the return to power of the Rajapaksa brothers’ Sri Lanka Freedom Party.
67. It is also plausible in this context that the appellant would not have been afraid to return to Sri Lanka in 2010, 2011 or 2013 – after the civil war had ended and while the government was still officially committed to reconciliation – or again in 2015. He may have been optimistic to count on Pres. Rajapaksa being voted out in January 2015, and it is somewhat surprising that he did not wait for the actual result, but he was right to be optimistic. I also consider it consistent with his account of his behaviour throughout, because he has always described himself as having a certain civil courage. He reported R’s abductions to the police 2008, in spite of having seen a man in uniform in the van, made a statement to the LLRC, and complained to the police again in 2020 when supporters of the SLFP were disturbing the peace in their election campaigning. He is a man who has taken some risks to what he considers right.
68. Ms Isherwood submitted that it was not plausible that the appellant would have been able to leave the country without incident in 2013, if he had not in fact withdrawn his statement to the LLRC as promised. Nor was it plausible that he would have been able to leave in 2020, after being released on bail.
69. It is trite that plausibility must always be considered in the country context, and I am grateful to Ms Bayati for drawing my attention to the extensive discussion of the airport “stop list” in in GJ. The finding of the Upper Tribunal in GJ was that “Only those whose names appear on a “stop” list will be detained from the airport.”: Headnote (6). Although the issue in that appeal was the risk to those returning to Sri Lanka, the “stop list” is described in terms that are not confined to arriving passengers. For example, the glossary defines the “stop list” as a “Computerised list of those against whom there is an extant Court order, arrest warrant or order to impound their Sri Lankan passport. Accessible at the airport.” At [114], similarly, the Upper Tribunal records the evidence of Prof, Anthony Good, who “confirmed the use of “watch” and “stop” lists at the airport. Immigration Officers did not have the underlying data, just the instruction to “stop” or “watch” which originated from the security services.” There is therefore some force to Ms Bayati’s submission that it can be inferred that the appellant would not have been stopped at the airport in 2013 or 2020, because there had been no warrant or court order against him and he would therefore not have been on a stop list.
70. As noted above, the appellant has adduced a large number of documents in support of his claim. I put considerable weight on the court documents. They are extensive and detailed and, as noted above, entirely consistent with Sri Lankan history in this period and broadly consistent with the appellant’s account. Their provenance has been carefully accounted for through statements from two different attorneys in Sri Lanka, both of whom have furnished evidence that they are attorneys. The envelopes in which the documents and the verification report were sent to the UK have also been provided. Ms Isherwood queried the qualifications of the second attorney in document verification, but I consider that being a practicing attorney is sufficient expertise to compare certified copies of court documents with the originals of those documents, as held on the court’s files. I also place weight on both attorney’s statements because they are brief and contain all necessary material details but no more and are written in professional language. I place particular weight on the certification report from the second attorney, because he was acting on instructions of the appellant’s solicitors in the UK and sent his report directly to them. See: PJ v SSHD [2014] EWCA Civ 1011 at [41]-[42].
71. In her submissions, Ms Isherwood raised no specific criticisms of the format or content of the documents or the identity of the two attorneys. She stressed that the appellant’s wife had not set out in her August 2024 letter how she had obtained the documents, but I do not consider that to be a significant concern, because the appellant had at the same time obtained a detailed statement from the attorney who had obtained from the court.
72. As further corroboration of his account, the appellant has adduced his employment contracts from 2015-2020, a lease agreement in his and R’s names for a property in his home city, dated in February 2005, photographs of the property that appear to be taken from Google maps, and a water bill for the property, in his name, from 2008. I consider that these documents appear entirely plausible in their format and content. Taking them together with all of the other evidence, and the appellant’s overall credibility, I find that they provide further corroboration of his account.
73. Finally, I accept that the woman in the YouTube video resembles the woman in the family photo in the appellant’s bundle. No doubt, such a video could easily be staged, but if so, one might have expected that it would be more dramatic and easier to hear. Taken in the round with all of the other evidence, I find it lends some further corroboration to the appellant’s account.
74. The respondent has included some records related to the appellant’s previous visa applications in her bundle. I note that the respondent was satisfied in 2020 that he was employed and financially comfortable and that he had previously been employed by SriLankan Airlines until 2005, which is consistent with a key feature of his account.
75. For these reasons, I accept the appellant’s account in its entirety. With reference to the risk factors identified in KK and RS, I specifically find that the appellant made a statement to the LLRC and the authorities are aware that he did so, and that there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest on charges of being a supporter of the LTTE. If he returned to Sri Lanka, according to the guidance in KK and RS, he would be detained at the airport and would be at real of persecutory treatment.
Notice of Decision
The appeal is allowed on Refugee Convention grounds.
The appeal is allowed on human rights grounds, with reference to article 3 ECHR.
The appeal is dismissed on humanitarian protection grounds because the appellant is a refugee.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
14 April 2026

Order under Rule 10(1)(b) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008
As I have allowed the appeal, I have considered making an order for the respondent to pay the appellant’s appeal fee, as provided for by Rule 9(1)(b) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014.
I make an award of any fee that was paid or payable, because the original decision was based on material mistakes of fact and plausibility points that were taken without regard to the country evidence.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

14 April 2026