Tribunal decisions

The decision

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

23rd September 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE ANZANI

Between

HK
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr F. Ahmad, Counsel instructed by Fountain Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms K. Khan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 08 September 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
1. The Appellant appeals against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal, promulgated on 5 November 2025, which dismissed his appeal on asylum, humanitarian protection and human rights grounds.
Background
2. The Appellant is a national of Iraq and is of Kurdish ethnicity. He claims to have lived most recently in Mahmoudiya Village in the Rabia area of Nineveh Governorate, close to the border with Syria.
3. The Appellant left Iraq in September 2021 and arrived in the United Kingdom on 3 November 2021. He claimed asylum the following day. The Respondent refused his protection and human rights claim on 24 December 2023.
4. The Appellant claims that members of Hashd al-Shaabi had repeatedly approached him because his work as a shepherd took him through an area close to the Syrian border and they believed he might have information about Daesh or ISIS. He says that he was detained and tortured in July 2019 and February 2020, and was required to collect information for them. He maintains that one of his friends was killed, that the threats intensified and that he was approached for the last time in August 2021.
5. The Appellant also claims to fear the Zebary tribe because of a longstanding family dispute. He further maintains that his civil identity documents had been taken by Hashd al-Shaabi and that he could not obtain or access the documentation required to travel safely and live in Iraq.
Decision of the First-tier Tribunal
6. The Appellant’s appeal against the Respondent’s decision dated 24 December 2023 was heard in the Virtual Region on 4 November 2025. The Appellant attended, was represented and gave oral evidence with the assistance of a Kurdish Bahdini interpreter.
7. The First-tier Tribunal Judge hearing his appeal did not accept that the Appellant had given a credible account. At paragraphs 19 and 20, the Judge relied upon his failure at the screening interview to identify his fear of Hashd al-Shaabi or the Zebary tribe and his answer that he had never been detained.
8. At paragraph 21, the Judge found that the Appellant had given insufficient detail during his substantive asylum interview concerning the occasions on which he had been approached. Although the Appellant later identified six dates in his witness statement, the Judge found that this was a convenient narrative created to extinguish the earlier vagueness.
9. At paragraphs 22 to 28, the Judge relied upon what he considered to be an inconsistency concerning recruitment, the period between the alleged torture and departure from Iraq, the absence of a plausible motive for targeting the Appellant, the implausibility of his escape from armed men in a vehicle, the limited value of photographs of a scar, the circumstances in which his identity documents were said to have been taken, and the claimed continuing interest of Hashd al-Shaabi.
10. At paragraph 29, the Judge separately rejected the claim to be at risk from the Zebary tribe. The Judge found the account vague and inconsistent, noted that the Appellant had described it as not being the real problem, and found that the family had previously moved without encountering further difficulties.
11. At paragraphs 30 and 31, the Judge relied upon the Appellant's failure to claim asylum in other European countries and concluded that he was an economic migrant from a family of means who had manufactured a bogus asylum claim.
12. At paragraph 33, the Judge rejected the claim that the Appellant was unable to communicate with his family or access his documents. The Judge found that either the Appellant or his family possessed his INID, that his family could send it to him in the United Kingdom, and that return to Baghdad was feasible.
13. At paragraphs 34 to 41, the Judge rejected the Appellant's private-life claim and found that his removal would not breach Article 8 ECHR.
14. The appeal was dismissed on all grounds.
Grounds of appeal
15. The Appellant sought permission to appeal on a single ground containing several related complaints of inadequate reasoning. In summary, it was contended that the Judge:
(i) failed at paragraphs 19 to 21 to engage adequately with the explanations in the Appellant's witness statement for the omissions at screening and the later provision of greater detail;
(ii) failed at paragraph 22 to identify the inconsistency concerning recruitment;
(iii) failed at paragraph 23 to engage with the explanation for the timing of the Appellant's departure;
(iv) gave inadequate reasons at paragraphs 24 and 25 for rejecting the asserted motive for targeting him and his account of escaping;
(v) gave inadequate or speculative reasons at paragraph 27 for rejecting the account that Hashd al-Shaabi had taken his identity documents;
(vi) gave inadequate reasons at paragraph 31 for finding that the Appellant was an economic migrant from a family of means; and
(vii) failed at paragraph 33 to engage with the claimed difficulties in communicating with his family and to undertake an adequate assessment of documentation and feasibility of return.
16. Permission was refused by First-tier Tribunal Judge Athwal on 6 January 2026. On renewal, permission was granted on all grounds by Upper Tribunal Judge Blum on 1 April 2026. Judge Blum considered it arguable that legally adequate reasons had not been given at paragraphs 19, 20, 22, 25 and 27. The grant directed that the focus at the hearing should be upon the corresponding paragraphs of the renewed grounds and upon materiality in light of the Judge's other findings.
17. The Respondent filed a rule 24 response dated 14 April 2026 opposing the appeal. The Respondent maintained that the grounds amounted to disagreement with findings which were open to the Judge and that, in any event, the remaining adverse findings meant that any error was immaterial.
The hearing before the Upper Tribunal
18. The matter came before me at Field House on 8 September 2026. The Appellant was represented by Mr Ahmad and the Respondent by Ms Khan. I had before me a composite Upper Tribunal bundle of 97 pages and the Respondent's rule 24 response.
19. Mr Ahmad relied upon the grounds. He submitted that the Judge had failed to engage with the explanations at paragraphs 7 to 12 of the Appellant's witness statement for the omissions at screening. Those explanations included the circumstances of the Channel crossing, the conduct of an agent, the Appellant's physical and mental state, his detention after arrival and his claimed anxiety and distrust of the interpreter.
20. Mr Ahmad submitted that no inconsistency concerning recruitment was identified at paragraph 22. The Appellant's case had consistently been that Hashd al-Shaabi wanted him to provide information. The Judge also failed to address his evidence that his departure in September 2021 followed the killing of a friend, stronger threats and the final approach in August 2021.
21. In relation to paragraph 25, Mr Ahmad submitted that the Judge did not engage with the Appellant's explanation that the vehicle had stopped, the men fired from a distance, did not continue to pursue him and that he ran and hid as he returned towards the village. The conclusion of implausibility was therefore inadequately reasoned.
22. Mr Ahmad submitted that the findings concerning documentation were speculative. The Appellant had explained that his passport was stored elsewhere when the other documents were taken and that he had crossed illegally into Syria. There was no evidential basis for finding that possession of a passport was inconsistent with poverty. The finding that the family had means was also unsupported and inconsistent with the treatment of the evidence at paragraph 27.
23. Finally, Mr Ahmad submitted that paragraph 33 contained no adequate assessment under SMO & KSP (Civil status documentation; article 15) Iraq CG [2022] UKUT 00110 (IAC). The finding that either the Appellant or his family possessed the INID was an unsupported alternative and the Judge did not adequately address the claimed communication difficulties.
24. Ms Khan relied upon the rule 24 response. She submitted that the Judge was entitled to rely upon the omissions at screening and had expressly stated that the witness statement and the explanations contained in it had been considered. The Judge was not required to rehearse every part of the evidence, and the weight to be attached to it was a matter for the trial Judge.
25. Ms Khan submitted that the decision had to be read as a whole. The Judge had given several sustainable reasons for rejecting the claim, including at paragraphs 24, 26, 28, 29 and 30. The finding concerning the Zebary tribe had not been challenged, and the Appellant's failure to claim asylum in Germany was properly relevant under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004.
26. In relation to documentation, Ms Khan submitted that the Judge was entitled to reject the Appellant's evidence about contact with his family and to find that he could access his documents. Even if the observation about possession of a passport and poverty was questionable, it was not material when the findings were considered cumulatively.
27. In reply, Mr Ahmad criticised the treatment of the photographs as self-serving and the statement at paragraph 30 that a genuine asylum claimant would not have crossed the Channel. He invited me to set aside the protection and documentation findings and remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.
28. At the conclusion of the hearing, I reserved my decision.
Decision and reasons
29. I have considered the First-tier Tribunal’s decision, the evidence identified in the grounds and submissions, the grounds of appeal, the rule 24 response and the parties’ oral submissions before reaching my decision.
30. The Supreme Court in HA (Iraq) v SSHD [2022] UKSC 22 reiterated that judicial caution and restraint are required when considering whether to set aside a decision of a specialist tribunal. In particular, judges of the specialist tribunal are best placed to make factual findings. Appellate courts should not rush to find misdirections simply because they might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently: see AH (Sudan) v SSHD [2007] UKHL 49 and KM v SSHD [2021] EWCA Civ 693. Where a relevant point is not expressly mentioned by the tribunal, the court should be slow to infer that it has not been taken into account: see MA (Somalia) v SSHD [2010] UKSC 49. When it comes to the reasons given by the tribunal, the court should exercise judicial restraint and should not assume that the tribunal misdirected itself just because not every step in its reasoning is fully set out: see R (Jones) v FTT (SEC) [2013] UKSC 19.
31. A judge is not required to rehearse every item of evidence. The reasons must, however, identify and resolve the principal controversial issues and enable the parties to understand why they have won or lost: Budhathoki (reasons for decisions) [2014] UKUT 00341 (IAC) and MK (duty to give reasons) Pakistan [2013] UKUT 00641 (IAC).
32. I have kept these considerations in mind when coming to my decision.
Screening interview and later detail
33. The Judge was entitled to take account of the omission of the central protection claim from the screening interview. The interview expressly asked the Appellant to identify briefly all the reasons why he could not return, and his answer was confined to fighting in his area and not feeling safe. His answer at question 5.4 that he had never been detained was also capable of being treated as inconsistent with the later account. The fact that a screening interview is intended to obtain only a brief outline does not prevent a judge from attaching appropriate weight to a material omission, provided that the circumstances and any explanation are fairly considered.
34. The difficulty in this instance is that the Appellant gave a detailed explanation at paragraphs 7 to 12 of his witness statement for failing to disclose the claim at screening. The Judge stated at paragraphs 19 and 21 that the explanations had been considered but were not credible. The decision does not identify what was rejected about them or explain why. A general statement that evidence has been considered does not necessarily require further elaboration. Here, however, the explanation concerned the very omission upon which the Judge placed substantial weight and was therefore a principal controversial issue requiring resolution.
35. There were matters capable of weighing against the explanation. The Appellant said at screening that he was ready to be interviewed, disclosed no physical or mental health condition, confirmed that he understood the questions and did not ask to add or change anything. Those matters might have provided a lawful basis for rejecting all or part of his explanation. The First-tier Tribunal did not, however, undertake that assessment. The Upper Tribunal cannot supply reasons which the Judge did not give.
36. A similar difficulty arises at paragraph 21. It was open to the Judge to scrutinise the provision of six specific dates after the refusal decision and to consider whether that represented genuine clarification or embellishment. The description of the witness statement as a 'convenient narrative', without explaining why the additional detail was rejected, did not adequately resolve that question. I therefore find the challenge to paragraphs 19 to 21 established.
Recruitment and timing of departure
37. At paragraph 22, the Judge found that the Appellant had been inconsistent about attempted recruitment, but did not identify the inconsistent accounts. The evidence recorded in the decision, the asylum questionnaire and the substantive interview was that Hashd al-Shaabi wanted the Appellant to provide information about Daesh or ISIS. After the second alleged detention, he said that he agreed to collect information because he feared further harm. Describing this as an attempt to recruit him as an informant did not, without more, disclose an inconsistency. Ms Khan, on behalf of the Respondent, was unable to identify from the decision what inconsistency the Judge had in mind. The reasons at paragraph 22 are therefore inadequate.
38. At paragraph 23, the Judge relied upon the fact that the Appellant did not leave Iraq until approximately 18 months after the second alleged detention and torture. The passage of time was capable of being relevant to credibility. However, the Appellant’s case was not that the second detention, viewed in isolation, caused his departure. He said that Hashd al-Shaabi continued to approach him, that one of his friends was subsequently killed, that the threats became more serious, and that a final approach took place in August 2021, shortly before his departure in September 2021. Those matters were directly relevant to his explanation for remaining in Iraq until that time. The Judge did not evaluate that explanation or explain why the continuing and allegedly escalating events did not account for the timing of his departure. The bare reliance upon the period which elapsed after the second detention therefore addressed only part of the account and was inadequately reasoned.
Motive and escape
39. I do not accept that paragraph 24, considered in isolation, was inadequately reasoned. The Judge identified the vagueness of the Appellant's oral evidence about the information sought, the absence of any named individuals, numbers or timeframe, and the absence of an explanation for why he possessed knowledge not available to other local residents or to Hashd al-Shaabi. Those were reasons capable of supporting the finding that the Appellant had not established a plausible motive for being individually targeted. Whether those reasons should ultimately prevail was a matter for the First-tier Tribunal Judge.
40. Paragraph 25 is different. The Judge summarised the Appellant’s account as follows:
“At interview the Appellant claimed that he was able to evade the Hashd Al Shaabi who were firing shots and had killed some of his animals. He was in an open area and Hashd Al Shaabi were in a vehicle, and the Appellant was on foot. He claims to have been able to run away. His explanations in this regard are both implausible and incredible.”
That reasoning appears to proceed on the basis that the Appellant claimed simply to have outrun armed men who were pursuing him in a vehicle across open ground. That was not the full account given during the substantive interview. At questions 56 to 59, the Appellant explained that the men were firing from a distance, that their vehicle stopped, that they did not continue to drive towards him or follow him, and that he ran towards the village and concealed himself as he did so. Those matters were directly relevant to whether his escape was inherently implausible. The Judge was not required to reproduce every answer, but was required to engage with the substance of the explanation before rejecting it. The bare conclusion that the account was “implausible and incredible” does not explain why the fuller account was rejected and appears to address a materially incomplete version of the evidence. The finding was therefore inadequately reasoned.
Documentation and family means
41. At paragraph 27, the Judge found it incredible that Hashd al-Shaabi would take the Appellant's INID but not his passport. The Appellant had explained at asylum interview question 88 that the passport was stored elsewhere in the village when the other documents were taken. The Judge did not engage with that explanation. The question was not merely why the militia elected to leave one document behind. The Appellant's case was that it was not present to be taken.
42. The Judge also considered it incredible that the Appellant could leave Iraq without his INID because this would prevent him passing through checkpoints. The evidence in his witness statement and asylum questionnaire was that he left the village, crossed illegally into Syria and was then smuggled onwards. The decision does not explain why that account required him to pass through the checkpoints contemplated by the Judge.
43. Finally, there was no identified evidential basis for the statement that possession of a passport was generally inconsistent with coming from a poor family with elderly parents. It was open to the Judge to consider the family's ability to finance the journey and the absence of detail about how it was paid for. Possession of a passport, without evidence of its cost or the circumstances in which it was obtained, did not itself sustain the inference drawn. The errors at paragraph 27 are established.
44. At paragraph 31, the Judge found that the Appellant came from a family of means which arranged his exit in a well-planned manner and concluded that he was an economic migrant. The cost of travel with agents was capable of being relevant. The evidence before the Judge, however, did not identify the cost of the journey or how the Appellant’s father had obtained the necessary funds. The bare fact that an irregular journey was financed did not, without further analysis, establish that the family was generally one of means or that the protection claim had been manufactured. Those conclusions also depended substantially upon the preceding credibility assessment. They cannot provide an independent answer to the errors already identified.
Feasibility of return
45. At paragraph 33, the Judge rejected the claimed communication difficulties with family in Iraq and found that the Appellant was either in possession of his INID or that his family possessed it. The Appellant’s witness statement explained that his family did not have a smartphone or internet-enabled mobile telephone, lived in a remote village without mobile signal, had to travel to Rabia Town to telephone him and could afford only short and infrequent calls. The Judge referred to the evidence that the Appellant remained in contact with his family and to his oral evidence that he had not spoken to them for seven months, but did not explain why the practical difficulties described in the witness statement were rejected.
46. An adverse assessment of general credibility may properly bear upon an assertion that documents are unavailable. In this case, however, the finding that either the Appellant or his family possessed the INID was based substantially upon the adverse credibility assessment which is affected by the errors identified above. The Judge did not identify any independent evidence demonstrating who possessed the document.
47. If it were lawfully found that the Appellant or his family possessed his original INID and could send it to him, an extended examination of every alternative route to documentation under SMO & KSP might not be required. The difficulty is that the factual premise for that conclusion cannot safely stand. The issues of existing documentation, family contact and assistance, the place and method of return, and the ability to travel onwards must therefore be assessed afresh in accordance with the applicable country guidance and country evidence.
Materiality
48. The Respondent submitted that the remaining findings independently sustained the decision. I accept that not every adverse finding has been shown individually to involve an error of law. In particular, paragraph 24 contained intelligible reasons concerning the asserted motive for targeting the Appellant. Paragraph 29 also contained separate reasons for rejecting the claimed risk from the Zebary tribe.
49. The errors identified above are nevertheless material to the Hashd al-Shaabi claim. They concern the omission of that claim at screening, whether the account of recruitment was inconsistent, whether the timing of the Appellant’s departure was properly assessed, whether his account of escaping was properly understood, and whether his identity documents were taken. Those matters formed a substantial part of the cumulative credibility assessment. Paragraph 28, concerning continuing interest, did not determine whether the alleged past detention and torture occurred. The assessment under section 8 at paragraph 30 was relevant but could not, by itself, establish that the substantive account was fabricated.
50. The Judge’s observation at paragraph 26 that the photographs of scarring were self-serving was not, without more, a reason to reject them. The Judge also identified a perceived difference between an injury to the foot and a scar shown near the knee. I do not need to determine whether paragraph 26 independently involved an error because it was not clearly pleaded as a ground. It does not, however, compel the conclusion that the protection appeal would inevitably have been dismissed if the core evidence had been lawfully assessed.
51. Standing back, I cannot be satisfied that the outcome of the Hashd al-Shaabi claim and the related documentation claim would inevitably have been the same absent the errors. Credibility had to be assessed holistically. Once several material components of that assessment are legally defective, the remaining findings cannot safely be treated as a freestanding cumulative assessment which the First-tier Tribunal did not itself undertake.
52. Although the finding concerning the Zebary tribe was not separately shown to involve an error of law, I do not consider it appropriate to preserve that isolated finding. The Judge’s conclusions were reached in the context of a global assessment that the Appellant was not a witness of truth and had manufactured his asylum claim. The remaking Tribunal will be required to assess his evidence and credibility afresh. Preserving one discrete adverse finding from the same overall assessment would risk artificially fragmenting that exercise and constraining the fact-finder’s consideration of the evidence as a whole. The Respondent will remain entitled to rely upon the matters identified at paragraph 29 when the appeal is reheard.
53. There was no freestanding challenge to the Article 8 assessment. Nevertheless, the conclusion that the Appellant would not face very significant obstacles to integration relied expressly upon the rejection of his evidence concerning contact with his family and upon the finding that they could support him. The proportionality assessment also proceeded upon the premise that he could safely and feasibly return to Iraq. Those factual premises are affected by the errors identified above. The Article 8 assessment cannot therefore sensibly be severed from the protection and documentation findings and must also be set aside.
Disposal
54. The credibility of the Appellant’s account, the associated assessment of future risk, and the issues concerning documentation and the feasibility of return must be determined afresh. The nature and extent of the fact-finding required are such that, having regard to paragraph 7.2 of the Senior President’s Practice Statements and the guidance in Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC), the appropriate course is to remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal for a hearing de novo before a different judge of the First-tier Tribunal. No findings are preserved.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of a material error of law.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside in its entirety, with no findings preserved.
The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard de novo before a different judge of the First-tier Tribunal.

S. Anzani

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

21 September 2026