CAT/C/63/D/673/2015
4.11 Furthermore, the State party points out that there are discrepancies in the
complainant’s account of his alleged arrest. According to his first version of events, the
complainant had been arrested at his home and Barzagar had been arrested at the same time
in front of the house by plainclothes police officers. During his second hearing, the
complainant stated that he had been able to escape by car from the garden in Ahmad Abade Mostowfi, thinking that Barzagar had been arrested. Lastly, the State party considers that
the complainant’s behaviour after the events at the garden in Ahmad Abad-e Mostowfi
makes no sense. The complainant claims to have returned home after telephoning his wife,
who had supposedly informed him that several persons had entered the family home. On
this matter, the State party again concurs with its domestic authorities, which noted that the
complainant had been unable to provide a plausible explanation as to why he had returned
home without taking even the slightest precaution, even though he clearly risked arrest.
4.12 The State party doubts the authenticity of the judgment that the Revolutionary Court
of Tehran allegedly passed against the complainant, as well as that of the court summons
preceding it and the lawyer’s letters dated 17 and 18 March 2015.21 It says it is well known
that such documents can be purchased with very little difficulty in Iran. Furthermore, it
considers that the lawyer’s letters are courtesy letters. This impression is borne out by the
fact that the same lawyer had allegedly suggested to the complainant that he should contest
that judgment through a defence strategy to which no further reference is made in his letters
of 17 and 18 March 2015. Moreover, the judgment supposedly relates to ordinary offences
(illegal possession and carriage of weapons and ammunition), as mentioned by the Federal
Administrative Court in its judgment of 14 January 2015, and is therefore not sufficient
grounds for concluding that the complainant runs the risk of persecution as the result of any
political activity he might have undertaken. Any link between the judgment and the
complainant’s political activity is even less plausible in view of the fact that the first court
summons addressed directly to the complainant was dated 12 October 2006, around 10
months after his supposed arrest, 8 months after his alleged release and/or 6 months after
his having left the country. That the summons should arrive so late is all the more
surprising in view of the claim that, in order to secure his own release, the complainant
supposedly agreed to cooperate with the security authorities. If such were the case, failure
to cooperate would have immediately drawn the attention of those authorities. In the light
of the above, it is equally incomprehensible that the first court summons should schedule a
hearing before the Revolutionary Court of Tehran three months after its issuance.
4.13 Lastly, the State party notes that the Federal Administrative Court also expressed
doubts regarding the two court summonses addressed to the complainant’s mother-in-law,
threatening her with the confiscation of her assets if the complainant failed to appear before
the Court, given the complainant’s claim that he had been released upon providing financial
guarantees from his mother, two of his sisters and his father-in-law.
4.14 In view of the above, the State party is of the view that the complainant’s conduct
while in Iran and Switzerland has not been such as to provide reason to believe that he
stands a real, specific risk of being subjected to torture by the Iranian authorities. The
complainant has not made plausible claims of persecution in Iran, and his profile as an
opponent of the regime is not such as to prompt the Iranian authorities to consider him a
danger by virtue of his activities in Switzerland. In sum, nothing in his case file indicates
that the attention of the Iranian authorities has been drawn by his activities, that they are
aware of his activities or that they have taken any action against him because of those
activities. The State party concludes by stating that all of the complainant’s arguments
concerning a risk of persecution in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and in particular his
activities in Switzerland, have been thoroughly examined by the Swiss authorities and that
the complainant’s communication does not contain any new information or evidence.
Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations
5.1
The complainant submitted his comments on the State party’s observations on 2
January 2016. He considers that the State party has simply repeated and summarized the
arguments used by the Federal Office for Migration and the Federal Administrative Court
21
GE.18-12643
See above, footnotes 1 and 4.
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