CAT/C/49/D/425/2010
father. On 15 December 2005, the complainant was reportedly arrested and subjected to
physical ill-treatment. The complainant claimed that before his release on 4 January 2006
he was forced to sign a confession that he belonged to an Islamist group, and he had to
undertake to report on a weekly basis to the police. The complainant noted that he had not
been convicted of any crime but that he was under police surveillance. On 20 March 2008,
the complainant was allegedly summoned to the police with a request to bring his passport.
Since his passport was with the Egyptian embassy, he promised to bring it on 27 March
2008. Instead, he left the country. He stated that four days after he had left the country, his
wife’s passport was confiscated.
4.3
On 17 December 2009, the Migration Board rejected the complainant’s application
for asylum, holding that the police summons was of poor quality and the text was illegible.
They further found that it was odd that the police would send a summons to a person who
was allegedly reporting to them once a week. From the photos the complainant submitted as
proof of his past torture, it was impossible to draw any conclusion about the nature of the
injuries and about the time when they arose, the more so because no medical evidence was
provided. The Migration Board acknowledged that the complainant had written the letters
to the President. However, it took the view that this evidence by itself did not support a risk
of persecution. It further found that it was not probable that the complainant’s passport had
been confiscated, as the copy of the old passport showed that it didn’t have any pages left
and a renewal had become necessary. It further stated that it was remarkable that the author
sought to clarify the matter of his father’s death 12 and 19 years after the event. The claim
that his father had been killed by the military or the regime was considered to be far-fetched
and improbable. The Migration Board further noted that the visit of two policemen in plain
clothes during his absence in May 2005 was not credible. Neither was his story that the
authorities were looking for him at his wife’s residence. It further stated that the fact that
the complainant had spent time in the Schengen area without applying for asylum indicated
that he did not feel that he was in need of protection. He also spent two years in Algeria
after the alleged torture. Furthermore, the Migration Board held that the complainant did
not appear to risk any disproportionately severe punishment for the letters he had sent.
4.4
On 16 March 2010, the Migration Court dismissed the complainant’s appeal,
holding that the complainant had not plausibly shown that he had been summoned to the
police because of the contents of his letters to the authorities, and that the complainant
would not risk being given a disproportionately severe sentence if convicted at all of a
crime relating to his allegations. It further took into account that, during the period from
2006 to 2008, the complainant was able to travel to Egypt several times without any
obstacles and that in 2007 he stayed in the Schengen area without seeking international
protection. The facts of his case made it improbable that he was of any interest to the
authorities in Algeria. With regard to his alleged grievance that he was at risk for having
applied for asylum abroad on the ground that he is supposedly suspected of having a
connection to Islamic terrorists, the Court found that it was not probable that the
complainant risked reprisals, as he had allegedly been forced to sign a confession stating
that he had voluntarily given himself up to the police. This implied that the complainant no
longer has any connection to such groups. On 3 June 2010, the Migration Court of Appeal
refused leave to appeal. On 23 June 2010, the Migration Board decided not to grant a
residence permit or an order for a re-examination of the case. On 8 July 2010, the Migration
Court of Appeal found that the letter from the First Secretary of the Embassy of Sweden in
Algiers had not had any effect on the asylum process and rejected the complainant’s request
for a new hearing.
4.5
On admissibility, the State party acknowledges that all domestic remedies have been
exhausted and that it is not aware that the same matter has been or is being examined under
another procedure of international investigation or settlement. It submits that the
complainant’s assertion that he is at risk of becoming a victim of a violation of article 3 if
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