A 25-year-old Somali man whose application for international protection was rejected by the Asylum Service was recognised as a refugee by the Administrative Court of International Protection on Thursday. The court accepted that he was a victim of torture.
Judge Eleni Riga noted that during his asylum interview, the man offered to show injuries he attributed to burning plastic, but the interviewing officer from the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) said this was not necessary. The court found that the evidence before it did not show that a relevant specialised assessment had been carried out.
The judge said the offer did not prove the existence or origin of the injuries, but showed a willingness to support his claim with evidence that was not investigated. In those circumstances, she said, “the absence of medical documentation cannot be used as a standalone reason for rejection”.
His imprisonment and torture by an armed group in Somalia, and a 2018 US air strike over which he was arrested, contributed to the original decision being overturned. The court took into account his accepted status as a victim of torture as a material personal circumstance. It said, however, that his recognition as a refugee rested on his meeting all the substantive conditions for refugee status, not on his vulnerability alone.
The man left Somalia in 2020 and entered Cyprus irregularly in 2021. At his asylum interview, his claims that he had been arrested and tortured were not believed.
He appealed without a lawyer. In a written submission, he said he feared persecution in Somalia because of accusations linking him to the Somali government, and that he had been tortured in prison in his hometown. The extremist group Al Shabab controls the town, he said.
According to his account, on October 12, 2018, US forces carried out an air strike in the area where he lived. He, his brother and four other people were accused of collaborating with government forces and helping US forces. They were arrested and taken to a police station, where they were ill-treated. He spent a year and ten months in Abu Cubeyd prison, where he was tortured.
His brother, held in the same prison, died after being tortured, including being forced to put his head inside a plastic bag, the man said. When the man’s uncle learned of his brother’s death, the uncle helped secure his release on bail on August 3, 2020. The man then fled Somalia through Kenya.
