Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001429

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/67108/2023
LP/07448/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 21 August 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HANSON

Between

HHI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Schwenk instructed by Kenneth Jones Solicitors.
For the Respondent: Dr Ibisi, a Senior Home Office Presenting Officer.

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 1 August 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 appeals with permission a decision of the judge of the First-tier Tribunal (“the Judge’), promulgated following a hearing at Manchester on 8 October 2024, in which the Judge dismissed his appeal on all grounds.
2. The Appellant is a citizen of Iraq born in 1982, who travel to Turkey and through various countries before arriving in the UK on 8 November 2020. He claimed asylum on 10 November 2020 which was refused on 11 December 2023.
3. The Judge sets out the Appellant’s case at [6]. The Appellants nationality, ethnicity, and work as a minibus driver was accepted by the Secretary of State but not that the Appellant had come to adverse attention of members of ISIS, the PMF, Iraqi forces, or that he was politically active in the UK [7].
4. The Judge sets out the issues at [8 – 9] and findings from [10], leading to the conclusion at [19] that the Appellant had not discharged the burden of proof upon him to show he has a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason, was not at risk of suffering serious harm sufficient to entitle him to a grant of humanitarian protection and/or leave on any other basis. The Judge also found the Appellant could not succeed under the Immigration Rules [19].
5. The Appellant sought permission to appeal which was refused by another judge of the First-tier Tribunal but granted on a renewed application by the Upper Tribunal on 15 April 2025, the operative part of the grant being in the following terms:
(2) From reading [11] and [12], it does not appear to be the case that the judge rejected the appellant’s claim that he had been subject to a recording that was intended to make him appear to be an ISIS supporter, although she does not accept that the men who made the video were from ISIS. At [13], the judge says that “even if I am wrong” and that the man were from ISIS, the appellant could seek the protection of the state. It is unclear from reading those three paragraphs whether the judge gave any consideration to whether the recording could still put the appellant at risk even if it was not made by ISIS. It is possible that might turn out to be immaterial. But against that background of what appear to be incomplete findings by the judge in relation to the what risk may arise even if that video was not made by ISIS, while [13] appears to be couched in the alternative, I am satisfied that it is just about arguable when findings at the appellant could seek the protection of the Iraqi authorities from the PMF without having had expressed regard to the country evidence before (Ground 2)
(3) I am less convinced by the other grounds, but I do not restrict the grant of permission.
Discussion and analysis
6. It is important to consider the Appellant’s case and his reasons for leaving Iraq as he presented them to the Secretary of State and his asylum interview in which he stated:
On 27 September 2020 I was hired to transport some people might minibus. We agreed a fee of 55,000 Dinar for the journey. I picked up two people initially, I picked up nine more people, four, then another four, then one final stop. They told me they were labourers working at a construction company, each one had a sack that was full. When I dropped them off they paid me 550,000 Dinar. On the journey that [sic] had criticised Shia’s saying they were apostate; they also told me that they knew I lived with my mother. When I got home and told my mother she said I need to be careful because it seemed they were watching me. Approximately three days to a week later, they called and asked me to do another job, I told them no. They asked me why and I told them that my mother didn’t want me going out of the city at night. I hung up. The next day, at night, they came to our house. She said there was three Arabs here to see me. They came in and talked with me, they told me they had a present from the Amir. They said you have to come with us, I said no, they said come with us whether you like it or not, you are Muslim, you are Sunni, you needed to help the Islamic State. I again refused, my mother was begging for them to leave me alone, they were all armed and I was very scared. They started making threats against me, saying they had people in the government and are powerful. They said if I was not with them, I am not a Muslim and any non-Muslim should have their head chopped off. They started attacking me, my mother put herself between us and they started beating my mother. My mother pleaded with them to take anything but my son, so they took my phone, my keys in my minibus. They had filmed just to make it look like we were supporting Daesh. My mother contacted her brother, Ali, to come and get us. He came, we had to walk to the end of the street as he was scared to come to the house. My uncle took us to his house, we arrived about 8 AM. My uncle left and returned maybe an hour later, he said that my minibus had been involved in a conflict with Hashd Al’ Shabbi (PFM) and said that people in the minibus had been killed. He knew I needed to flee the country.
7. Having considered the documentary and oral evidence with the required a degree of anxious scrutiny the Judge found at [11] that the Appellant had not established, to the lower standard, that the perpetrators were members of ISIS. In that same paragraph the Judge does not find it reasonably likely that they were indeed ISIS. That is finding open to the Judge on the evidence and has not been shown to be infected by material legal error.
8. Mr Schwenk’s submission is that even if this finding is sustainable the Judge makes no findings about whether it is accepted the Appellant and his mother were beaten and the video recording made or that his minibus was taken and involved in an accident such as to create the risk with the PMF the Appellant relies upon. Mr Schwenk’s submission was that these are separate issues, namely that even if the Judge did not accept that the men the appellant refers to well from ISIS that did not mean to the other aspects of the case did not occur.
9. The difficulty with such a submission is it would have to be accepted that there was no direct connection between the Appellant’s claim which was found not to be proved and the resulting events. I do not find such can be found. If one looks at the Appellant’s account in his asylum interview, which was not materially changed to any degree throughout the course of the later evidence, he is describing men form ISSI who he claimed he had crossed by refusing to assist them, as a result of which those same individuals beat him tried to blackmail him by filming the beating, with the use of an ISIS flag in the video.
10. The Judge was entitled to focus on the core element of the claim which was the alleged risk to the Appellant as a result of his upsetting members of ISIS who acted as they did as a result of his refusal. As that element was found to lack credibility it can clearly be inferred that the Judge did not accept that the other events the Appellant claimed had been made out.
11. I do not find the evidence and decision as a whole permits what will be an artificial separation between the events as a whole and the interrelationship of those to the appellant’s claim those individuals were from ISIS. I find the judge’s finding that this had not been made out on the evidence to be determinative of that aspect, including the alleged beating and recording.
12. Relation to the appellant’s claim he would face a real risk on return from the PMF as a result of his minibus being stolen and being involved in an incident, a chronology of account set out above clearly shows that the appellant’s claim is the minibus was stolen by the ISIS members when they were at his house and after they had beaten him, but as the Judge was entitled to find that element had not been made out and the related events did not occur, the claim the minibus had been stolen by these individuals also lacks credibility.
13. Mr Schwenk referred to the fact the Secretary of State accepted the Appellant was a minibus driver but that is arguably relevant. He does not claim risk arises as a result of his occupation but as a result of a chain of events that were found not to have been satisfactorily proved on the evidence. That was a finding reasonably open to the judge on the evidence.
14. As the Judge was entitled to find as recorded in the determination there is no merit in finding that the appellant’s risk of his mobile and minibus been stolen and used by ISIS is credible. The appellant has not established legal error in the judge’s decision to dismiss the appeal which should include rejection of his claim to face a real risk from ISIS. That finding is supported by the overall conclusion of the Judge that Appellant had not discharged the burden of proof upon him to show he has a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason, was not at risk of suffering serious harm sufficient to entitle him to a grant of humanitarian protection and/or leave on any other basis. That is a sustainable finding.
15. In any event, the situation in Iraq as it will be at the time of return is that the Appellant will not face any real risk from ISIS as there is nothing to suggest that he is of adverse interest to them. Nor is there sufficient evidence to establish a risk from the PMF as no real risk is established on the evidence and so the issue of sufficiency protection does not arise; although in light of the findings the conclusion in the determination has not been shown to be affected by legal error.
16. In relations to the reasons challenge, an informed reader is able to understand the findings made by the Judge and the reasons although, I accept it is necessary to sit back and consider the Appellant’s case as outlined in his asylum interview to understand the significance of the core finding made by the Judge. That, of course, will be information available to an informed reader. On that basis I do not find that the Judge’s findings are not adequately reasoned. Reasons only need to be adequate not perfect.
17. It is not made out the Judge’s finding at [16] that the Appellant could not contact his uncle in Iraq to send him his CSID, which will enable him to travel without difficulty through checkpoints and to live a lawful life in Iraq, is outside the range of findings open to the Judge.
18. The Appellant can be returned with a laissez passer to any airport within Iraq. He has family there who will no doubt be able to assist him to re-establish himself. It has not been shown it was irrational for the Judge to conclude the Appellant can seek re-employment and take advantage of the voluntary return scheme.
19. The Judge’s assessment of whether very significant obstacles exist is considered from [17], and the conclusion the Appellant had not established very significant obstacles to integration into Iraq has not been shown to be finding outside the range of those open to the Judge on the evidence.
20. The Court of Appeal have made it clear that appellate judges should not interfere with decisions of judges below unless they are ‘plainly wrong’. The Judge considered the evidence with the required degree of anxious scrutiny and has made finding supported by adequate reasons. It has not been shown those findings are outside the range of those reasonably open to the Judge on the evidence. Whilst the Appellant disagrees with the outcome and would clearly like to remain in the United Kingdom, the grounds fail to establish the Judge’s overall conclusion that the appeal should be dismissed is ‘plainly wrong’ or rationally objectionable.
Notice of Decision
21. No error of law has been made out in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal.
22. The determination shall stand.

C J Hanson

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

1 August 2025