CAT/C/56/D/586/2014 4.14 The State party submits that the Migration Board and the migration courts are specialized bodies with particular expertise in the field of asylum law and practice and contends that there is no reason to conclude that the national rulings were inadequate or that the outcome of the domestic proceedings was in any way arbitrary or amounted to a denial of justice. Accordingly, the State party holds that great weight must be attached to the opinions of the Swedish migration authorities, as expressed in their rulings ordering the expulsion of the complainants to the Russian Federation. 4.15 In addition, the State party submits that the complainants have claimed that expelling them to the Russian Federation would be a violation of article 3 of the Convention as they risk being subjected to treatment contrary to the rights of the Convention upon return, mainly owing to accusations against the first complainant of involvement in explosions in Grozny in August 2011 and the possession of illegal firearms and explosives. The State party, like the migration authorities, considers that a number of factors give cause to question the veracity of the complainants’ claim that they would risk being subjected to torture in violation of article 3 of the Convention upon return to the Russian Federation. The State party agrees with the assessment made by the Migration Board and the Migration Court that the complainants’ accounts contain contradictory information and conflict with generally known facts about the complainants’ country of origin. The State party thus takes the view that the complainants have failed to provide a credible account and will elaborate below on the circumstances of relevance to the assessment of the complainants’ credibility in this regard. 4.16 Firstly, to support their identities, the complainants have submitted a military service book belonging to the first complainant, a domestic passport belonging to the second complainant and birth certificates belonging to the third, fourth and fifth complainants. The State party agrees with the view of the Migration Board and the Migration Court that the complainants have not plausibly established their identity by the above-mentioned documents. As the Migration Board has noted, the first complainant’s military service book is old, of a simple nature and contains no recent notes. Furthermore, the page in the second complainant’s domestic passport, on which the Russian authorities register information on whether and when an international passport or previous domestic passports has been issued, is missing. The second complainant has not given a reasonable explanation as to why one page is missing in her domestic passport. Furthermore, the third, fourth and fifth complainants’ birth certificates are of a simple nature, with no photographs or verifiable certificate. In this respect the State party shares the Migration Board’s view that it is likely that the complainants have withheld information of significance for the asylum process. 4.17 In the light of these findings and with regard to the fact that the complainants’ account of their journey from Ingushetia to Sweden has been vague and lacking in details, the State party, like the Migration Board, cannot rule out the possibility that the complainants may have left the Russian Federation legally with their own international passports and with approved visas for the Schengen area, or that they may have resided in an area outside of Chechnya before departing for Sweden. Furthermore, although the linguistic analysis indicates that the complainants originate from Chechnya, no documentation has been provided to show where the complainants had their last place of residence. Thus, the State party shares the view of the Migration Board that the complainants may have resided in another part of the Russian Federation before travelling to Sweden. Hence, the State party holds that, even if the complainants have plausibly demonstrated that they are nationals of the Russian Federation, they have not plausibly established that their last place of residence was in Chechnya. 4.18 Furthermore, the first and second complainants have claimed to belong to the Mialkhiy group, whose members have been subject to discrimination and harassment by the Russian authorities. The State party notes, however, that the complainants have not claimed 8

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