CAT/C/68/D/860/2018 Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 In his submission of 19 August 2018, the complainant challenges the State party’s argument on the admissibility of his complaint, arguing that he has raised substantive issues under article 3 of the Convention, in particular concerning the question of whether the Swedish Migration Agency, in its decision of 15 January 2018, and the Svea Court of Appeal in his criminal case adequately assessed his stated need for international protection. The Svea Court of Appeal, as a general court not specialized in asylum cases, was obliged to request a statement from the Migration Agency before ruling on the complainant’s expulsion. However, the Migration Agency did not have access to the 2015 video of Ramzan Kadyrov when it rendered its statement to the Court of Appeal. The reference to the video by the Svea Court of Appeal does not suffice to show that it included the video’s content in its examination, as under Swedish law a general court is assumed to lack expertise in asylum matters. It is not stated anywhere that any Swedish court or the Migration Agency has seen the video and the decision of the Migration Agency of 15 January 2018 explicitly states that the video had not been made available to it. Furthermore, even though the Court of Appeal expressly referred to a statement from the Chechen Human Rights Centre, dated 17 June 2016, concerning the author, the same material should have been made available to the Migration Agency. 5.2 As for the complainant’s continued residence in the Russian Federation until 2002, the fact that, as far as he knows, he was not wanted by the authorities does not of itself show that they had no interest in him. If the Chechen authorities had had the resources to subject everyone connected to the insurgency to persecution, there would not have been an insurgency. Further, the situation in Chechnya has changed compared to the years 1999– 2002, as Akhmad Kadyrov only gained the current level of control over Chechnya after the complainant had already left the Russian Federation. 5.3 Concerning the complainant’s return to the Russian Federation and his contact with the Russian authorities, that return was limited to a one-day visit to Gudermes around 2005, for which the complainant used documentation borrowed from a friend. Further, he paid an agent to obtain his international passports and to have his children and entry stamps added to his domestic passports. He was outside the Russian Federation when the authorities issued them. This account is supported by the Swedish border police’s assessment that the tampering with the passport picture was “very skilful”. The authorities did not explain why the complainant would resort to a counterfeit passport if he had no problems with the Russian authorities. He hid the passports in the airport only for fear of expulsion. As for the travel of his wife and children to Chechnya, the complainant states that his family’s surname is not an uncommon name in Chechnya, that his wife was careful not to draw unnecessary attention to herself and that their stay in Chechnya says little about the complainant’s own risk of treatment contrary to article 1 of the Convention in the Russian Federation. 5.4 As for the complainant’s risk of such treatment because of his father’s activities, the complainant notes that the Migration Court expressly did not question the veracity of his account of the attack by Kadyrov’s forces on his father’s home in 1999. Nor did the Migration Court question the claim that the complainant’s father was a well-known adviser to Aslan Maskhadov. The 2015 video of Ramzan Kadyrov shows that he still considered the complainant’s father a prominent enough enemy to mention, threaten and disparage in a public setting. None of the complainant’s family members still resides in the Russian Federation. The practice by the Chechen authorities of collective punishment of families they regard as enemies contradicts the State party’s claim that the complainant does not risk torture or ill-treatment because of the events before and during 2002. 5.5 The complainant’s association with X should be considered, together with the complainant’s family ties and personal history. The complainant could therefore be considered an opponent of the Chechen regime. State party’s additional observations 6. On 21 November 2018, the State party provided a further submission, in which it objects to the complainant’s contention that it did not contest several of his assertions. It 7