Asylum seeker allowed to stay in Britain after judge confused Iraq with Iran
An Iraqi asylum seeker was allowed to stay in Britain after an immigration judge confused his home country with Iran.
The unnamed man won his case after Judge Helena Suffield-Thompson delivered a ruling based on guidance that related to the wrong Middle Eastern state.
She assessed that he would be at risk of persecution because of anti-Iraq government posts on his public Facebook account that would be subject to surveillance.
However, Judge Suffield-Thompson had based the ruling on Iran, which has a 'sophisticated' capability to monitor the social media accounts of political opponents, rather than Iraq, which carries out no such surveillance.
A new tribunal has since found that Judge Suffield-Thompson 'erred in law' as the apparent 'risks' to the asylum seeker were based on an assessment of Iran instead of Iraq – which carries out no such surveillance.
New tribunal hearing
The asylum case will now have to start again with a new tribunal hearing it due to the blunder.
The case, disclosed in court papers, is the latest example exposed by the Telegraph where migrants or convicted foreign criminals have won the right to remain in the UK or halt their deportations.
There are a record 41,987 outstanding immigration appeals, largely on human rights grounds, which threaten to hamper Labour's efforts to fast-track removal of illegal migrants. The backlog has risen by nearly a quarter since September and is up nearly 500 per cent from just 7,173 at the start of 2022.
In an initial asylum appeal in July 2022, Judge Suffield-Thompson ruled in the unnamed Iraqi's favour after he argued 'he was at risk from the Kurdish leadership as he had exposed their corrupt practices and behaviour'.
The asylum seeker claimed 'he campaigned against the Kurdish leadership in the UK' and was involved in 'activities' in Britain and 'expressed his views on Facebook such that he would be at risk of persecution on return as a result.'
Judge had 'materially erred'
But following the July 2022 decision to allow him to stay, the Home Office launched an appeal, asserting the judge 'had materially erred by relying on the factual findings of Country Guidance decisions that did not relate to the country situation in Iraq and instead either related to Turkey or Iran'.
It added: 'It is contended therefore that the appeal has been allowed on an erroneous basis.'
Judge Suffield-Thompson in July 2022 had claimed, wrongly, that the Iraqi authorities had developed 'sophisticated' means to keep check on the activities of demonstrators, Facebook users and bloggers abroad.
'The [Iraqi's] Facebook posts are public so he will be readily identified as the person making those anti-government posts. He will also have to disclose that he has been living in the UK. He is not expected to lie about his political views and beliefs due to fear of persecution,' the tribunal was told.
However, the upper immigration tribunal found there was no evidence that Iraqi authorities monitor the social media pages of anti-Iraq protestors, unlike Iran.
Judge Lucy Murray said: 'It is unclear whether [Judge Suffield-Thompson] mistakenly thought that [Iranian case law] was in fact Iraqi country guidance case law. The case reference is incorrectly cited by her ... and omits the word 'Iran'.
'In the circumstances, I conclude that [Judge Suffield-Thompson's] assessment of the risk on return to the [Iraqi] due to his sur place activities was based on country guidance that did not relate to Iraq.'
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