CAT/C/55/D/571/2013 4.11 Concerning the statements by the complainant that it was generally known that sons of wealthy families were kidnapped by the Taliban, the State party submits that the Danish Appeals Board had observed that such information was of a general nature and deemed to have no bearing on the complainant’s specific conflict. The Board also observed that, according to its background material, including the Danish Immigration Service report of 29 May 2012, “Country of Origin Information for Use in the Asylum Determination Process”, the Taliban mainly recruit ethnic Pashtuns, and the complainant is an ethnic Tajik. The medical records forwarded by the complainant with his letter of 27 November 2013 could not lead to a different assessment of the case and the Board still found that the complainant and his spouse had failed to substantiate that they would be at a real risk of persecution or abuse under section 7 of the Aliens Act if they were to return to Afghanistan. The Board therefore relied entirely on its decisions of 13 January 2012 and 19 July 2013. On 3 December 2013, further to the Committee’s request, the Board suspended the date for the complainant and his spouse’s departure from the State party. 4.12 The State party submits that the complainant has failed to establish a prima facie case for the purpose of admissibility under article 22 of the Convention. He has not provided sufficient information to enable the Danish Appeals Board to establish that there are substantial grounds for believing that the complainant would be in danger of being subjected to torture if returned to Afghanistan. The State party is of the view that this part of the communication should be considered manifestly ill-founded and inadmissible. The State party considers that the complainant is trying to use the Committee as an appellate body in order to have the factual circumstances in support of his asylum claim re-assessed. 4.13 In that connection, the State party refers to the case law of the Committee, which states that due weight must be accorded to findings of fact made by domestic, judicial or competent government authorities unless it can be demonstrated that such findings are arbitrary or unreasonable. 11 The Committee has stated in its case law that it is for the courts of the States parties to the Convention, and not the Committee, to evaluate facts and evidence in a particular case and it is for the appellate courts of States parties to the Convention to examine the conduct of a case, unless it can be ascertained that the manner in which the evidence was evaluated was clearly arbitrary or amounted to a denial of justice, or that the officers had clearly violated their obligations of impartiality. 12 4.14 The State party submits that in the present case, the decision to uphold the refusal of the Danish Immigration Service to grant asylum to the complainant and his spouse was made by the Danish Appeals Board — a collegial, independent and quasi-judicial body. The decision was made on the basis of a hearing procedure, during which the complainant had the opportunity to present his views to the Board with the assistance of legal counsel. The Board has thus conducted a comprehensive and thorough examination of the evidence in the case. Moreover, on two occasions — in its decisions of 19 July 2013 and of 20 February 2014 — the Board found that there was no basis for re-opening the asylum proceedings. 4.15 With regard to the merits, the State party argues that, should the Committee consider the communication admissible, the complainant has not sufficiently established that his return to Afghanistan would constitute a violation of article 3 of the Convention. It maintains that the complainant must establish that he would be in danger of being tortured 11 12 See, inter alia, communication No. 148/1999, A.K. v. Australia, decision adopted on 5 May 2004, para. 6.4. See communication No. 282/2005, S.P.A. v. Canada, decision adopted on 7 November 2006, para. 7.6. 9