CAT/C/39/D/308/2006 Page 10 be sent to prison if returned to Azerbaijan. No explanation has been given for the lack of evidence. The State party also emphasises that the complainant and her husband have not submitted any identity documents to the Swedish migration authorities. Thus, it cannot be excluded that the family carry a different name and that R. A. is of a different ethnic background than stated before the national migration authorities. 4.12 The State party submits that in January 2007 it requested the assistance of the Norwegian Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, in providing information about the punishment for deserting military service in Azerbaijan. The Embassy responded that there were two different punishments for this crime: up to four years' imprisonment (Section 321.1 of the Criminal Code) and between tree and six years' imprisonment (Section 321.2 of the Criminal Code) respectively. According to legal sources, a prison found guilty of this crime would as a general rule receive a conditional sentence. If the crime has been committed repetitively, the person in question may be sentenced to prison term. The State party notes that the complainant and her husband stated that R. A. escaped from military service on one occasion, in July 2001, and that this incident occurred almost six years ago. Against this background, the State party finds it most unlikely that R. A., if condemned at all upon return to Azerbaijan, would be sentenced to prison term due to his refusal to carry out his military service. 4.13 In this context, the State party draws the Committee’s attention to the fact that before the Committee the complainant argued that R. A. would be sentenced to prison for "minimum seven years" upon return to Azerbaijan. At the same time, the submission to the Migration Board does not contain any statements at all about R. A. running the risk of being sentenced to prison if returned to Azerbaijan. In their application to the Aliens Appeals Board, the complainant and her husband stated, for the first tune, that R. A. would be sentenced to seven years' imprisonment due to his refusal to carry out his military service. However, the statement before the Committee that he would be sentenced to prison for "minimum seven years"12 is not to be found in the case files of the national authorities. This example of a recently added piece of information, in the State party’s view, calls into question the complainant and her husband’s credibility in this matter. It also indicates that their story of the possible consequences of R. A.'s refusal to carry out his military service has escalated during the course of the asylum investigation as well as before the Committee. This gives rise to further doubts concerning the complainant and her husband’s general credibility. 4.14 As to the question of the complainant and her husband’s behaviour before the national authorities, the State party submits that during the second interview at the Migration Board, R. A. stated that he had suffered memory loss as a result of the car accident. For this reason, he was unable to give any details with regard to, for example, where he had lived, where he had gone to school and where he had worked in Azerbaijan. He remembered having had many problems in Azerbaijan, but not that they were of the character and magnitude that he had described during the first interview. The investigator tried to obtain more information but R. A. was unable to provide any details about, for example, his journey to Sweden, or to explain in more depth the reasons he had previously given for seeking asylum. The only document submitted to corroborate R. A.'s injuries, i.e., the hospital record of 19 December 2003, does not support that he suffered from memory loss after being discharged from the hospital (paragraph 2.7 above). None of the submissions the Migration Board or the Aliens Appeals Board contain any arguments about R. A.'s memory loss as a result of the injuries 12 Italics added by the State party.

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