CAT/C/49/D/389/2009 2.9 The complainant left Turkey in November 2004. He initially filed an application for asylum in Germany, which was rejected in April 2007. He then applied for asylum in Switzerland on 1 October 2007. On 20 January 2009, the Federal Office for Migration dismissed the asylum application on the grounds that, under the Federal Asylum Act (art. 32, para. (2) (f)), there is no need to consider a request for asylum submitted by a person whose application has previously been denied by a European Union country, unless new events have occurred in the intervening period that might justify the granting of refugee status or temporary protection. The Federal Office for Migration deemed that, in the present case, there was no new evidence to justify a re-examination of the case, as the applicant had not returned to Turkey since leaving in 2004. 2.10 A late appeal was lodged by the complainant with the Federal Administrative Court, which found it inadmissible on 5 March 2009. The complainant submitted an application for review of the decision of the Federal Office for Migration on 12 March 2009; the application was accompanied by a number of documents aimed at establishing the danger faced by the complainant if he returned to Turkey. This evidence was intended to show what kinds of political activities members of his family had engaged in and to provide substantiation of that fact by showing that most of them have obtained asylum in Europe. The documents also dealt with the complainant’s political activities in Germany and France. The application for review was dismissed on 28 April 2009 by the Federal Office for Migration on the grounds, inter alia, that the evidence should have been included in the file that had accompanied the first application submitted to the Federal Office for Migration, since its existence predated that application; that the testimonial evidence from the complainant’s family was not conclusive; that there was no substantive evidence that the complainant was wanted by the Turkish police, especially as he had been acquitted in the only criminal proceedings brought against him; and that he lived for a year in Istanbul, where he was not wanted by the police. The Federal Office for Migration therefore concluded that he should be able to find a safe haven there from the alleged persecution of his family. 2.11 On 25 May 2009, the complainant lodged an appeal against this decision with the Federal Administrative Court. That appeal was dismissed by a single judge on 12 June 2009 on the grounds, inter alia, that the complainant could find a safe haven within Turkey in Istanbul and that he had not shown that he, personally, was wanted by the Turkish authorities. The Federal Administrative Court concluded that the events that he had described were related to particular circumstances and that the fact that he belonged to a family in which several members engaged in political activities was not sufficient to establish that he would run a real and personal risk. In support of his application to the Committee, the complainant provided further attestations indicating that he was an active member of the Democratic People’s Party in Gaziantep and that the Turkish authorities suppress Kurdish activists. The complaint 3.1 The complainant contends that he has exhausted all domestic remedies in Switzerland. He notes that the Swiss courts dismissed his asylum application on the grounds that he had previously initiated proceedings in Germany. He claims that the State party has therefore failed to fulfil its obligations under article 2 of the Convention. He notes that the Federal Office for Migration waited over a year after the hearings before handing down its decision and that the deadline of five working days to lodge an appeal against its decisions is difficult to meet, given the complexity of the present case, and that he was therefore deprived of sufficient procedural safeguards to allow him to properly defend his case. 4 GE.13-40787

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