INTERPOL Dismantling Strengthening the Tools of Oppression 128. The final concern relating to INTERPOL’s Refugee Policy is that INTERPOL alerts are sometimes relied upon to justify exclusion from, or to delay access to the protection of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The Refugee Policy makes it clear that its objective is not only to protect vulnerable refugees from abusive INTERPOL alerts, but to prevent “criminals from abusing refugee status”. As such the Refugee Policy encourages NCBs to check INTERPOL’s databases to ensure that refugee status is not granted to “dangerous criminals”. This is clearly reaffirmed by the Refugee Policy Resolution, which encourages Member States to consult INTERPOL’s databases for the purpose of refugee status determination. The Refugee Policy thus seems to endorse policies in certain countries like Australia, where the existence of an INTERPOL alert is an explicit lawful basis on which immigration status can be refused. The case of Sayed Abdellatif is emblematic of this challenge. Sayed Abdellatif Sayed Abdellatif claimed asylum in Australia in May 2012 based on the risk of persecution which he faces in Egypt, which he fled in 1992, having been repeatedly arrested and tortured by the State Security Intelligence. In 1999, Sayed was tried in absentia before the military courts in Egypt at a trial during which evidence obtained by torture was used to convict him. On 1 October 2001, INTERPOL issued a Red Notice for Sayed, in relation to alleged offences of inter alia murder, destruction of property and firearms offences – offences subsequently found to have been erroneously included in the Red Notice, given that he had never faced these accusations in Egypt. This Red Notice was reviewed and maintained in 2007 and 2011, albeit, as a result of which references to some of the more serious offences, including murder, were dropped. While the Australian authorities have found Sayed and his family to have prima facie claims to refugee status, and have acknowledged that evidence used against him in the 1999 trial was obtained under torture, the Red Notice has served to stall the asylum process. As a result, Sayed has spent five years in immigration detention with a significant impact on his relationship with his family who have been separated from him. Fair Trials applied for the deletion of Sayed’s Red Notice, and in February 2018, the CCF removed the notice, primarily due to the evidence of the use of torture in his criminal case. It is hoped that this will enable Sayed to claim asylum in Australia, and that he will finally be released from detention. “I feel like I’m paying for the mistakes of INTERPOL and the Australian government… They make the mistakes and I pay with my life and my family’s life.” Sayed Abdellatif 59