Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003185

First-tier Tribunal No:
PA/03439/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 21st of November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK

Between

AA
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: No representation
For the Respondent: Mr B. Hulme, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 23 October 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 him. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant has claimed asylum in the UK and says that he would be at real risk of state persecution in his home country because of his religious beliefs and the political opinions that have been wrongly attributed to him. The First-tier Tribunal made an anonymity order in this appeal and, having considered the relevant guidance, I consider that it is appropriate that the order continue. The UK’s obligations to people seeking international protection and the need to maintain the confidentiality of the asylum process outweigh the public interest in the precise details of the appellant’s identity.
2. The appellant is a citizen of Egypt, born in Egypt in 1989. In summary, he says that he was a university student before he fled Egypt. He had been involved in charitable activities that were rooted in his religious beliefs and linked to his mosque. His religiously-motivated charitable activities led the Egypt authorities to view him as a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, and in August 2018 he was arrested by the police. He was detained for four days and subject to inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual assault. He returned to university, but less than a week later, his father informed him that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. He fled to a relative’s home, and a month after that, his family home was raided and his older brother arrested and detained for several days. The appellant then fled the country, entering the UK on 1 October 2018 a student visit visa that he had already obtained. He claimed asylum on 14 July 2023. He said that he did not claim asylum before then because he was awaiting the outcome of criminal proceedings against him in Egypt. It was only after he was convicted in absentia on 10 April 2023 that he decided to claim asylum.
3. The respondent accepted that if the appellant’s account were true, he would be at risk of persecution in Egypt. However, she rejected the account on credibility grounds. She noted an inconsistency between one of his answers at his screening interview and his later account, found it inconsistent with external evidence that he had been able to leave Egypt travelling on his own passport after a warrant had been issued for his arrest, and found certain elements of the account implausible or insufficiently explained. She also found that his overall credibility had been damaged by the prolonged delay in his asylum claim.
4. The appellant appealed to the FTT. The evidence before the FTT included:
(i) The record of a screening interview conducted on 19 July 2023;
(ii) The record of a substantive interview conducted on 17 July 2024;
(iii) A document purporting to be a record of the judgment of the Alexandria Criminal Court, issued on 10 April 2023. The court convicted the appellant and eight co-defendants of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood and planning terrorist activities at their mosque, under the guise of charitable work. The appellant and two other defendants were noted to have fled to “an unknown destination” and were sentenced in absentia. The appellant was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment, and an order was issued preventing him from leaving Egypt.
(iv) A document purporting to be a travel ban issued against the appellant on 19 April 2023;
(v) Documents purporting to be arrest warrants issued against the appellant on 5 and 26 September 2018;
(vi) A witness statement from the appellant;
(vii) Reports about the human rights situation in Egypt issued by the US State Department and Amnesty International in 2023 and by a group of independent UN experts in November 2019;
(viii) The respondent’s Country Information and Guidance: Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood, from 2014;
(ix) The refusal decision of 21 August 2024; and
(x) A skeleton argument prepared by the appellant’s direct access counsel.
5. All of the Egyptian documents bore stamps purporting to be from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Consular Department, Authentication Department in Alexandria, confirming them as authentic and certifying them for use abroad. These stamps were dated 12 June 2023. They were accompanied by a certified English translation made on 23 July 2024.
The challenged decision
6. I have summarised the challenged decision because I have reminded myself of the importance of understanding the FTT’s reasoning as a whole, rather than “island-hopping”. See: Fage UK Ltd & Anor v Chobani UK Ltd & Anor [2014] EWCA Civ 5 [114].
7. The FTT’s decision begins by setting out a brief account of the appellant’s claim [3]-[9]. This is followed by an outline of what transpired at the hearing [10]-[16].
8. The FTT’s “Findings and reasons” are set out at [17]-[51]. The FTT confirmed at [17] that it had had regard to all of the evidence in the parties’ bundles and that the standard of proof for the appellant’s claim to have a well-founded fear of persecution for a Refugee Convention reason was the balance of the probabilities, the claim having been made after 28 June 2022. At [18]-[19], it directed itself that the standard of proof for risk on return under the Refugee Convention, for humanitarian protection, and for the appellant’s article 3 claim was the “lower standard” of a “real possibility”. Finally, at [20], it confirmed that it had considered all of the evidence, in the round, and that the burden of proof was on the appellant.
9. A section entitled “The Appellant’s credibility” follows at [21]-[49]. The FTT began by reminding itself that the appellant had only recently obtained legal advice and that his witness statement of 19 April 2025 had been prepared with the assistance of a friend.
10. The findings on credibility were divided into two parts: “The Appellant’s claim to have been detained in 2018” ([22]-[42]) and “The arrest warrants and travel ban” ([43]-49]).
11. The FTT dealt first with whether the appellant’s credibility was damaged by his delay in claim between his arrival in the UK in October 2018 and July 2023 in accordance with sections 8(2)(c) and 8(5) of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. It directed itself that the appellant was required to provide an explanation for his behaviour but that “even if a reasonable explanation is not given that this is not automatically fatal to the reliability of the core claim”: [23].
12. The FTT considered the appellant’s explanation for the delay at [24]-[26]. It noted that the appellant had explained at his substantive interview that he had not claimed asylum on arrival because he “didn’t know what was going to happen.” In his oral evidence he had further explained that he had been in touch with his solicitor in Egypt via his father, and his solicitor had advised him not to return until there was a final resolution of the case against him. He said he would have returned to Egypt if he had not been convicted. He had also said in his oral evidence that he had received the judgement of the Alexandria Criminal Court “a short while before his full asylum interview on 17 July 2024.”
13. The FTT then gave its reasons for not finding this to be a reasonable explanation:
(i) It was “not credible” that the appellant would have put himself at risk of arrest and detention as an overstayer in the UK, given that he claimed to have been arrested and subjected to serious harm in Egypt when he was “merely involved in charitable work”: [28]; and
(ii) It did not accept the “reliability” of the appellant’s claim that he would have returned to Egypt if he had not been convicted, given the harm he claimed to have suffered in detention “before any accusation was even made”: [29].
14. For these reasons, his explanation for the delay was not accepted. The delay was “highly significant” and had an “adverse impact on the core of his credibility, albeit it is not determinative.”
15. The FTT then added that “[f]urthermore”, the Appellant had not mentioned the conviction at his screening interview. The FTT acknowledged that the appellant was interviewed in English, but found that his English was “reasonably good” and that the record of the screening interview “records the Appellant plainly understanding and answering many of the questions asked.” It reminded itself that this was “not a point of nuance but the complete absence of reference to a major development.”: [31]-[33]. Nor had he explicitly mentioned his conviction at his substantive interview, in spite of being asked several questions where it would have been relevant to do so, such as what he had been accused of and why the authorities continued looking for him after they had released him in 2018: [34] and [38]-[41]. At [37], the FTT also noted that the Alexandria Criminal Court judgement dated 10 April 2023 was not translated into English until 23 July 2024 and therefore not available to the respondent at the time of the interview (which was held on 17 July 2024).
16. At [42], the FTT found:
“this seriously undermines the weight which can be given to the Alexandria Criminal Court judgment of 10 April 2023 when viewed in the round with all of the other evidence; I conclude that the Appellant has submitted an unreliable document. “
17. At [43]-[46] the FTT considered the documents purporting to be arrest warrants issued 2018 and travel ban issued in 2023. It found that the documents were consistent with the appellant’s account at his substantive interview ([43]) and rejected the respondent’s submission that the appellant’s departure on his own passport was inconsistent with the country evidence ([45]).
18. The final assessment of the appellant’s credibility followed:
“46. Overall, considering the evidence in the round, I find that no real weight should be given to the arrest warrants and travel ban document on the basis of my serious concerns about the Appellant’s delay in claiming asylum. I bear in mind that the Appellant apparently knew about the accusations a short time after arriving in the United Kingdom in 2018. The arrest warrants are also dated from September 2018 and, on the basis of the Appellant’s evidence that he was being kept up to date with the situation in Egypt by his lawyer (via his father), I find that he would have known about the arrest warrants at that time.
“47. I have also explained why I find that the 10 April 2023 Court document is unreliable and no real weight can be attached to it.
“48. Whilst I have factored in that the Appellant has been consistent in some aspects of his claim including that he was detained and held for four days after being involved in providing charitable donations to the poor, I conclude that I am not prepared to give the Appellant the benefit of the doubt and that the core of the Appellant’s claim is materially damaged.
“49. I therefore conclude that the Appellant is not a reliable witness applying either the balance of probabilities for the purposes of the Refugee Convention assessment or the lower standard in applying the humanitarian protection rules.”
19. At [50]-[51], the FTT found that the appellant had not established that he had been arrested, detained or sentenced to imprisonment as he claimed and that therefore he was not at real risk of either persecution or serious harm on return to Egypt.
The grounds of appeal
20. The appellant has been granted permission to appeal on five grounds.
21. Ground One: “Failure to Properly Assess the Reasonableness of the Delay.” The appellant argues that the FTT “failed to engage” with his explanation for the delay, which was that he was awaiting the outcome of the proceedings in Egypt and had a “reasonable belief” that return might be possible. This was said to be inconsistent with Yogathas v SSHD [2203] UKHL 36, “which states that delay must be assessed within its full factual context”.
22. Ground Two: “Disregard for Consistent and Detailed Fear of Imprisonment”. This ground is not clearly expressed. The appellant asserts that he consistently stated at his screening and substantive interviews that he would be imprisoned on return to Egypt, which reflected the fact that he had been convicted and sentenced. The FTT had acted “improperly” by treating this as a generalised fear and finding that he had not mentioned his conviction.
23. Ground Three: “Unfair Treatment of Documentary Evidence”. The FTT had disregarded the guidance in Tanveer Ahmed [2002] UKIAT 00439 when it dismissed the Egyptian documents based on the timing of their submissions and “subjective doubts”, without considering that they were officially translated, signed and stamped.
24. Ground Four: “Failure to Consider Ongoing Risk and Country Conditions”. Here, the appellant criticises the FTT’s failure to take into account the evidence of the ongoing risk of persecution of critics of the Egyptian government and those perceived to be associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
25. Ground Five: “Misapplication of the Standard of Proof”. The appellant argues that his account was consistent, supported by official documents, and “aligned with country conditions.” In rejecting it, the FTT imposed a standard of proof higher than a reasonable degree of likelihood.
26. On 21 August 2025, the Upper Tribunal granted the appellant permission to appeal, finding that is was arguable that the FTT treated section 8 considerations as determinative and failed to take a holistic approach to the evidence. The first three grounds were therefore “just arguable”, while the fourth and fifth rose and fell with the first three.
27. The respondent filed a Rule 24 response, which I have taken into account in reaching my decision.
The hearing
28. At the hearing before me, I had two appellant’s bundles, one prepared by the Upper Tribunal (as the appellant is a litigant in person) and one prepared by the appellant. There was a considerable overlap between the two bundles, except that the appellant’s bundle included a detailed “supporting statement” from the appellant rearguing his case and omitted the grounds and grant of permission and the Rule 24 response. I have only taken into account the bundle prepared by the Tribunal and I have disregarded the appellant’s “supporting statement”. As I explained to the appellant at the outset of the hearing, the sole issue before me was whether the FTT had made an error of law. Any arguments as to why the appeal should be allowed were premature.
29. I also had before me a skeleton argument drafted by the appellant, which is confined to errors of law and which I have taken into account.
30. The appellant addressed the Tribunal with the assistance of an Arabic interpreter, and I am confident that there were no issues in understanding or interpretation. I heard submissions from the appellant and from Mr Hulme, and a brief reply from the appellant. At the end of the hearing, I reserved my decision, which I now given with my reasons.
Discussion
31. In deciding whether the Judge’s decision involved the making of a material error of law, I have reminded myself of the principles set out in a long line of cases, including Ullah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 201, at [26], Yalcin v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 74, at [50] and [51], Gadinala v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 1410, at [46] and [47], and Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 at [2]-[5]. At the same time, I have given anxious scrutiny to the decision, given that it is not in dispute that the appellant would be at real risk of serious persecution if his account were accepted.
32. After reading the decision as a whole and considering the evidence before the FTT and the parties’ written and oral submissions to the Upper Tribunal, I have concluded that the FTT’s approach to the assessment of the appellant’s credibility did involve material errors of law.
33. The appellant’s explanation for his delay in claim was simple: he intended to go back to Egypt if he was not convicted, and shortly after he was informed that he had been convicted, he claimed asylum. The main reasons that the FTT gave for rejecting this explanation were the two plausibility points set out at [28] and [29] of the determination. There is nothing to suggest that either of these points were put to the appellant at any time. They were not raised at the interview or in the refusal decision or mentioned in the FTT’s summary of the appellant’s oral evidence about delay at [24]-[25]. The first plausibility point in particular is sufficiently counter-intuitive that it should have been put to the appellant for a response. It is difficult to understand why the fact that the appellant had been arbitrarily detained and subjected to sexual assault in Egypt should have made it incapable of belief that he would have risked immigration detention in the UK by overstaying. Some asylum-seekers may prioritise avoiding detention in the UK because they fear that the conditions they would face in detention here would be as inhuman and degrading in their home countries, but this cannot be assumed.
34. The FTT then gives no reason for the second plausibility point, which is that the appellant’s claim that he would have gone back to Egypt if he had not been convicted was not “reliable”, given the ill-treatment he had suffered “before any accusation was even made”. The FTT appears to assume that once the appellant had been arrested and mistreated on mere suspicion of an offence, he would not have felt safe to return even if he had been acquitted by a court. This is a plausibility point that should have been put to the appellant and, in addition, considered in the context of the country evidence about how the Egyptian authorities treat those who have been acquitted by Egyptian courts.
35. As set out in the Rule 24 response, these were not the only reasons the FTT gave for rejecting the appellant’s credibility. It proceeded to give another reason for rejecting the appellant’s credibility, which was that he had not expressly mentioned his conviction at his screening or substantive interviews. I have considered this point carefully, because there is logical force to the argument that if there were other reasons for finding that the appellant had not been convicted as he claimed, then the conviction cannot have explained the prolonged delay and the flaws in the plausibility points taken at [28] and [29] would be immaterial.
36. The difficulty is, however, that credibility must be assessed in the round, and the FTT approached the appellant’s explanation for failing to mention his conviction at his screening or substantive interviews having already found that the core of his credibility was significantly undermined by the unexplained delay. Moreover, the appellant offered a cogent explanation for failing to mention his conviction at his screening interview, which a reasonable FTT judge could have accepted. This is that he had agreed to be interviewed in English because there was no Arabic interpreter available and he had been was assured that most of the questions would be simple and he would have an opportunity to provide further information later. He then struggled to understand the questions.
37. It may have been open to the FTT to reject this explanation for the reasons given in the determination (although it is unclear what the FTT based its assessment of the appellant’s understanding of spoken English on, as the appeal hearing was held 21 months after the screening interview and the appellant gave evidence through an interpreter), but the difficulty is that before considering this explanation, the FTT had already decided that the appellant’s credibility had been damaged. Although the decision has to be read as a whole, this is how the FTT itself explained its reasoning at [30]-[31] (“I therefore find” … “Furthermore”). I have given my reasons above for finding the implausibility findings at [28] and [29] to be materially flawed. I cannot say that the explanation for failing to mention the conviction at the screening interview would have inevitably been rejected if the preceding errors had not been made.
38. The delay in claim then played a decisive role in the decision not to attach any weight to the arrest warrants and travel ban. The FTT noted at [44] that the dates of the warrants are consistent with the appellant’s account, and at [45] that it was not inconsistent with the country evidence that the appellant would have been able to leave the country on his own passport after the warrants were issued. No concern was expressed about the format or the content of the documents. The FTT nonetheless concluded at [46] that:
“Overall, considering the evidence in the round, I find that no real weight should be given to the arrest warrants and travel ban document on the basis of my serious concerns about the Appellant’s delay in claiming asylum”.
39. It is trite that the weight to be given to a particular adverse credibility factor is a matter for the FTT, subject to the very high threshold of irrationality. The appellant’s delay was prolonged, and there was no error in treating a long, unexplained delay as outweighing other the positive credibility indicators that the FTT had acknowledged. The problem is that I have found above that the FTT erred in rejecting the appellant’s explanation for his delay in claim for the particular reasons that it did.
40. Finally, I have carefully considered the detailed and cogent reasons the FTT has given for finding that the appellant did not expressly mention his conviction at his substantive interview, and that this undermined his credibility. The appellant says that he referred to it implicitly by saying he would be imprisoned on return, but it was clearly open to the FTT to consider that he had been asked a number of questions that called for an express reference to it. I have also reminded myself of the principles of appellate restraint cited above, as well as of the fact that the FTT had the benefit of hearing from the appellant in person. However, it is always the case that credibility must be assessed in the round, and the FTT says that is what it did here. Several factors weighing in favour of the appellant’s credibility were identified, including the consistency of the appellant’s account of his detention and mistreatment ([48]) and the consistency of the arrest warrants with the appellant’s account and with the country evidence. There can be no suggestion that the appellant’s account of his arrest, mistreatment and conviction were inconsistent with the independent country evidence that was before the FTT of the treatment of suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Egyptian authorities. Finally, the FTT itself said twice (at [30] and [46]) that it was putting considerable weight on the appellant’s unreasonable delay in claim. It is impossible to say that the FTT would have inevitably rejected the appellant’s credibility if it had not found his explanation for his delay in claim implausible.
41. The respondent has accepted from the outset that if the appellant’s account is true, he is at real risk of persecution in Egypt. Because the FTT’s reasons for rejecting his account were infected by a material error, the decision must be set aside.
42. I have taken into account the guidance set out in Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC) and AEB v SSHD [2022] EWCA Civ 1512, as well as the Practice Statement of 11 June 2018, and I consider that remittal is appropriate given the extensive fact-finding required.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal promulgated on 13 May 2025 was vitiated by material errors of law and is set aside in its entirety.
The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for a fresh hearing on all issues, before any other judge.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

11 November 2025