CAT/C/43/D/307/2006 2005. Moreover, he had failed to submit the required documents to complete his application for leave with regard to the decision dated 30 October 2006 refusing to defer his removal. The State party emphasizes that judicial review is an effective remedy. It concludes that the complainant’s failure to seek judicial review with respect to the humanitarian and compassionate and PRRA decisions, or to pursue his current leave application with due diligence, makes his complaint inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. 5.1 On the merits, the State party recalls that article 3 of the Convention places the burden upon the complainant to establish substantial grounds, which must go beyond mere theory or suspicion, for believing that he would be personally at risk of being subjected to torture upon return to his country of origin.6 The general human rights situation in a country was insufficient to establish such a personal risk. It submits that the inconsistencies undermining the credibility of his claim, the lack of evidence that he has been tortured in the past, and his low personal profile as a member of the Republican Guards lead to the conclusion that there are no substantial grounds for believing that the complainant would be personally at risk if he returned to Iraq. 5.2 With regard to the complainant’s credibility, the State party argues that his testimony before the Immigration and Refugee Board that he never fired on the enemy, killed anyone or dealt with prisoners of war or Iranian citizens during his eight years with the Republican Guards is implausible, given that he claims to have been promoted three times during that time. Similarly, it was unlikely that, as a Sergeant, he could have abstained from participating in any of the indiscriminate artillery attacks on Najaf, houseto-house arrests, round-ups of clerics, public executions, and massacres of civilians during the three days before he allegedly deserted the army. The date of desertion given before the Board did not coincide with his statement, in his Personal Information Form (PIF), that he deserted during the 1990 Gulf War, since the Najaf uprising occurred after the war. Lastly, the State party reiterates that it was implausible that a deserter who had allegedly been sentenced to death would be able to live with his mother and work in Baghdad for more than three years without facing problems. If in fact he was a “wanted” man, it was implausible that he would be able to obtain a passport issued in his name in 1995 and an exit visa in 1996, as stated in his PIF. 5.3 The State party submits that the complainant has not provided any details or corroborating evidence such as medical reports or scarring of his alleged torture by the Military Security Police in 1992, and thus certainly not in any recent past. Furthermore, torture under the former Saddam Hussein regime could not be taken to suggest that the complainant would still be at risk of torture in present-day Iraq. 5.4 While acknowledging that the human rights situation in Iraq is poor, the State party argues that the pervasive violence and instability alone are insufficient to substantiate the complainant’s allegation that he would face a foreseeable, real and personal risk of torture upon return to Iraq. It cites a similar case,7 in which the Committee did not consider that the individual’s prospective removal to Iraq would violate article 3 of the Convention, in the absence of additional grounds beyond the problematic country conditions to show that that individual would be personally at risk. The report of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq referred to by the complainant only mentions high-ranking military personnel and air force members as targets of extra-judicial killings. The complainant himself did not have the profile of someone who would be personally at risk in Iraq. Furthermore, he had 6 7 6 The State party refers to CAT, General Comment No. 1: Implementation of article 3 of the Convention in the context of article 22 (1997), at paras. 6–8; Communication No. 36/1995, X. v. The Netherlands, at para. 7.2. Communication No. 286/2006, M.R.A. v. Sweden, passim. GE.09-46716