CAT/C/48/D/413/2010
after the complainant appealed the Board’s decision. The State party concurs fully with this
conclusion. It argues that the complainant’s explanation as to how an application for a
Swedish visa was made in her name in Algiers in 2006 is not trustworthy, as it is vague and
incoherent.
4.9
The State party submits that a photo that is attached to a visa application must not be
older than six months. The visa application must be filled in and signed personally by the
applicant and the documents that should be attached to the application must be in the
original. These facts, in the State party’s view, raise further doubts in relation to the
complainant’s explanation that she did not take part in presenting the application to the
Swedish embassy in Algiers. Moreover, until she was confronted with the details of the visa
application, she had stated that she had never had a passport. During the interview, when
she was confronted with the visa application, the complainant stated however that she was
the holder of a passport and that it was not false. The State party contends that the
complainant’s statement that the only real name in the passport is her first name is not
trustworthy, nor is her explanation that someone else, a man called John, helped her to
apply for the passport or that she applied for it to help her friend. In addition to the
consideration that the complainant’s explanations regarding the application for a visa and
her passport are not credible, one of the experts on identity within the Migration Board
certified that a comparison of the complainant’s photo taken when she applied for asylum
and the photo attached to the application for a Swedish visa in Algiers shows that they
represent the same person.
4.10 As the State party, like the Migration Board, considers it evident that the
complainant is the same person who applied for a Swedish visa in Algiers, it follows that
the visa application had been filled in by the complainant and, therefore, has to be
considered while examining her claim for asylum. In this regard, the State party contends
that the statements made by the complainant in her application for a Swedish visa and her
application for protection are contradictory for the following reasons:
(a)
According to the application for a Swedish visa, the complainant’s parents
are living together in Rohero, Bujumbura and she has two sisters and one brother. The
brother is said to have been born in 1990. In the application for asylum, the complainant
stated that her parents were killed in 1996. Further, according to the application for asylum,
the complainant stated that her brother was born in 1975 and, therefore, would have been
31 years old when he was killed. Also, the application for asylum contains no information
stating that the complainant has sisters; and
(b)
Information in the application for a Swedish visa shows that the complainant
was working in Niger in 2002–2003. The information also shows that she left Algeria,
entered France and returned to Algeria three times between July 2003 and October 2005.
During the visit to France in July 2004, the complainant renewed her passport at the
Burundian embassy in Paris.
4.11 The State party argues that although the details regarding exits and entries to Algeria
and France do not in themselves prove that the complainant was living in Algeria during
2003, 2004 and 2005, they show that she was at least travelling between Algeria and France
during this time. Furthermore, she had not hesitated to contact the Burundian embassy in
Paris. Moreover, this information, together with the details that she worked in Niger in
2002–2003, and consequently lived there, also shows that she had no problems with leaving
Burundi during this time. As the complainant stated in the visa application that she was a
student at a university in Algiers, listing a home address in the town, it must be assumed
that she was living in Algiers at least during parts of 2006. In the light of these
circumstances, the State party concludes that it is evident that the complainant had been
abroad several times before arriving in Sweden in late 2006 to ask for protection, contrary
to what she has stated in her asylum application.
9