CAT/C/57/D/558/2013
conclude that the complainant would be at risk of torture upon return to that country. It
maintained that the first complainant had not provided evidence to support the claim that he
would be at a “foreseeable, real and personal” risk of being subjected to torture if returned
to Belarus, and that there was no risk of his deportation to the Russian Federation.
4.7
With regard to the first complainant’s allegations that he had been subjected to
torture on three occasions in the past, the State party submitted that he had provided no
evidence that would not have been examined by the domestic authorities and that the
medical certificate issued in Brest in 2004 did not demonstrate that he had been injured by
the police in the circumstances he described. Therefore nothing indicated that he had been
tortured by the Belarusian authorities. With regard to the ill-treatment he alleged to have
suffered in the Russian Federation, the State party maintained that the complainant had not
provided evidence from independent sources.
4.8
The State party maintained that it was not apparent from the first complainant’s
account that he had been engaged in political activities either in the Russian Federation or
Belarus, and that there were was nothing to suggest that he was wanted for prosecution in
either country. The State party also maintained that, although the first complainant was the
brother of a combatant killed in 1999, he was not a combatant himself and had no links to
the Maskhadov or Umarov regimes. He was not therefore a member of a vulnerable group
who would be exposed to a risk of persecution if returned to Chechnya. Since he was not
wanted by the authorities of the Russian Federation, he would not be subject to the
agreements between the Russian Federation and Belarus in judicial and police matters.
Therefore, contrary to his statements, he was not at risk of deportation from Belarus to the
Russian Federation.
4.9
Regarding the risk of persecution in Belarus, the State party recalled that the alleged
discrimination against Chechen asylum seekers was not relevant to the applicant’s case,
since he had never filed an asylum request in Belarus. In addition, he had lived in that
country for four years with his wife and eldest son. The first complainant submitted two
summonses, but according to his statements of 6 March 2006, the Belarusian authorities
had not issued an arrest warrant against him and the summonses indicated that he was being
called as a witness only. Therefore, the State party concluded that he had failed to prove
that he was being persecuted in Belarus.
4.10 The State party noted the complainants’ claim that from the very beginning of the
asylum procedure, they stated how difficult their situation was and that their lives were in
danger in Belarus. The State party, however, observed that the first complainant never
mentioned during the interviews that his life would be in danger. During the interview of
22 November 2005, he did not allude to any problems with the Belarusian authorities.
Rather, the only reason he had given for leaving Belarus was the fact that, after the 2004
amnesty in the Russian Federation and Mr. Kadyrov’s accession to power, one of the first
complainant’s cousins had returned to Chechnya, where he had been killed. During the
6 March 2006 interview, the first complainant had also stated that in all the years he had
lived in Brest, he had never been stopped on the streets and asked for his identity papers or
apprehended. The State party considered that the allegations of arrests, detention and illtreatment that the complainants mentioned for the first time before the Tribunal were not
credible, and that the first complainant had not explained why he had omitted to mention
them previously. Given the fact that the first complainant had no particular problems
reporting them during the two interviews, the State party did not consider it likely that a
mental block had prevented the first complainant from mentioning possible acts of
persecution that he had experienced more recently in Belarus.
4.11 In the light of the above, the State party submitted that nothing indicated that there
were substantial grounds for believing that the first complainant would be personally in
danger of being subjected to torture, should he be returned to Belarus. His allegations did
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