England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM ORDER OF THE IMMIGRATION
APPEAL TRIBUNAL

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Friday, 4th May 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE LATHAM: The appellant is an Algerian citizen. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 16th October 1999 and applied for asylum on arrival. This was refused by the Secretary of State. The appeal against the directions for his removal by the special adjudicator was dismissed on 15th June 2000. Having obtained leave to appeal against the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, his appeal was dismissed on 3rd October 2000. He appeals to us with the leave of this court against that decision.
2. His claim for asylum was based, first, on the ground that he had a well founded fear of persecution by the authorities in Algeria and, secondly, that he had a well founded fear of persecution by terrorists in Algeria as to which the Algerian authorities were either unable or unwilling to provide protection. The appeal before us relates solely to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal's decision on the first ground.
3. The appellant gave evidence to the special adjudicator. He stated that he was a poultry farmer in an area 35 kilometres from the centre of Algiers who had never been involved in any political activities or religious groups. His problems started in April 1997 when two armed members of a radical Islamic group came to the farm, asked him questions about his business and took his identity card before leaving. Later they returned and gave him back his identity card. On 2nd June 1997 four men came to the farm including the two men who had been previously. They demanded monthly payments of 50,000 Algerian dinars and told him they were asking for money from all the traders in the area. Although he did not support the terrorists, he agreed to make the payments under duress with the agreement of his business partner.
4. He made the payments for approximately a year and then began to have financial problems. When he tried to explain that he could no longer make the monthly payments he was hit and kicked. He was frightened. He decided to leave. He went to stay with his parents in Algiers. While he was there he heard that the police had detained 11 other traders in the area where he lived who had also been making payments to terrorists. He became afraid that he would be detained as well. Eventually, while staying with his sister some distance from Algiers he heard from his mother that the police had come to see her in Algiers looking for him and telling his mother that they needed to ask him some questions and that it was important for them to speak to him. As a result, he decided to leave the country which he did in May 1999 ,using his own passport. He first went to France, then arriving in the United Kingdom on 16th October 1999.
5. The special adjudicator found the appellant to be generally a credible witness. He accepted that the police might well wish to question the appellant but pointed out that they had legitimate reason for wishing to do so because of admitted involvement with militants. He also accepted that if the appellant had been involved with terrorist activity himself or had willingly provided financial support to any of the armed terrorist groups, he would have good reason to fear ill treatment at the hands of the police that could amount to persecution. The appellant had never supported the terrorist groups. He said the payments were made under duress. He did not consider there was any likelihood of suffering ill treatment or persecution. In particular, there was no evidence to show that any of the other 11 traders were mistreated.
6. On appeal to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal it was argued that the special adjudicator wholly failed to take into account the fact that the Algerian authorities were likely to make no distinction between those who actually assisted terrorists and those who were suspected of assistance. Accordingly, it was unlikely that the police would pay attention to his claims that payments were made under duress. The evidence relating to Algeria was that those who were suspected of being or assisting terrorists were likely to face interrogation and torture and, accordingly, had a well founded fear of persecution.
7. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal concluded that the special adjudicator had been entitled to find, in the absence of any evidence, that the other traders had not suffered ill treatment or persecution, and that there was no real likelihood that the appellant would suffer such ill treatment or persecution himself. The chairman, at the end of the appeal tribunal hearing, concluded:

"Mr Jacobs (who also appeared before us on the appellant's behalf) is perfectly correct to point out that what matters is the perception authorities will have of a person rather than what that person has actually done. However on the facts of this case, even if the police interest in the traders was directed to whether they were assisting the armed Islamists, it is safe to assume that they had come to learn of the extortion racket being carried out by such a group or groups against all local farmers and traders in that area. There was nothing in the appellant's own evidence to indicate that all or most of the farmers and traders in that area made payments to the armed Islamic groups willingly. It would therefore be naive to suppose that the police investigating them would assume that all were guilty of active collaboration. It is quite true that the general country materials ..... demonstrate that the police and security forces in a significant number of cases act arbitrarily especially against persons they suspect of involvement with armed Islamic groups. But in the absence of any evidence that the farmers and traders in that area were in fact in sympathy with the armed Islamic groups concerned, it is perfectly justified to conclude, as did the special adjudicator, that the police would through questioning, be able to establish that this appellant was a victim of rather than a sympathiser with armed Islamists. Such a conclusion was particularly justified given that in this case they would know the appellant had no political or fundamentalist religious involvement. On the facts accepted, which included that the monthly payments were having a crippling effect on the appellant's poultry business it was reasonably likely that he and his business partner would be able to show to the satisfaction of the police thatthey had been coerced into making such payments."

8. Mr Jacobs in his able closing submissions accepts that in order to succeed in this appeal he has to show that the conclusions of the special adjudicator in the first instance and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal in the second instance were conclusions to which no reasonable tribunals could have come on the material before them. He points out however that both had accepted that the appellant was to be treated as a person who was suspected of being a terrorist sympathiser. He points out, as he pointed out to the appeal tribunal, that the objective material makes it clear that those suspected of terrorist involvement are at risk of being subjected to torture or, on some of the information available, to extra judicial execution. He submits that, on the other hand, there was no material upon which the special adjudicator or the Immigration Appeal Tribunal could sensibly conclude that the Algerian authorities would behave in the relatively benevolent way anticipated. His submission essentially was that it was naive - to use the tribunal's own words - to believe that the appellant would be treated as anyone other than a terrorist sympathiser on the basis of his admitted financial support and, accordingly, be at risk of the treatment identified in the objective materials which would justify his claim that he had a well founded fear of persecution on the basis of his perceived terrorist involvement.
9. While it could, in one sense, be said that the special adjudicator and the tribunal were looking at the situation in Algeria through rose tinted spectacles, nonetheless it seems to me to be impossible to say that the conclusions they reached were conclusions which no reasonable tribunal, properly directing itself and properly considering the material before it, could have reached. It is noteworthy that there was no evidence to suggest that the other traders, as to whom the appellant had information that they had been detained, had suffered any ill treatment which could amount to persecution at the hands of the authorities. There was no evidence to suggest that anything had happened to his business partner which could have given him any cause for fearing that he would suffer from ill treatment amounting to persecution were he to return. If there had been any ill treatment or other behaviour by the authorities, such as would justify the conclusion that the appellant had a well founded fear of persecution were he to be returned, it is surprising to me that he had not heard about it through his family or his friends or his business partner in Algeria. It does not seem to me that the conclusions of the special adjudicator and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal were irrational or perverse so as to justify this court interfering with what were essentially conclusions of fact reached by the experienced tribunal charged by Parliament with exercising this jurisdiction.
10. It is further noteworthy that insofar as it might be said that the conclusions reached were conclusions which were benevolent, as I have said, the assertion which this appellant makes, namely that he made the payments under duress, is an assertion which has some credence in the sense that it is clear from the objective materials we have seen that it is well known that the militant terrorists habitually extort money in exactly the way complained about by this appellant.
11. Accordingly, it seems to me that for the reasons I have given this appeal must be dismissed.
12. MR JUSTICE LLOYD: I agree.
13. LORD JUSTICE JUDGE: I also agree. Applying the relevant principles summarised by my Lord, Lord Justice Latham, in his judgment and, in effect, agreed by counsel, this is not a case in which this court would be justified in interfering with the decisions of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal.
Order: Appeal dismissed