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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Soytoprak v Secretary Of State For Home Department [2001] EWCA Civ 1046 (28 June 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/1046.html Cite as: [2001] EWCA Civ 1046

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Thursday 28 June 2001

Thursday 28 June 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE KEENE: This is a renewed application for permission to appeal against the decision of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal notified to the parties on 21 December 2000. The applicant is an asylum seeker. By its decision, the Tribunal dismissed an appeal by the applicant against the decision of a special adjudicator that he had not shown that he had a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason.
2. The applicant is a national of Turkey but of Kurdish ethnicity. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 9 October 1999 and claimed asylum on arrival.
3. In his evidence before the special adjudicator, the applicant described how he had worked on the family farm, but how his family had provided food for PKK guerrillas. He had done so under duress. He described a number of incidents when Turkish gendarmes or security forces had come to his village. The first of these was in 1992, when he said he had been tortured by gendarmes, being sprayed with pressurised water, hit by swinging sacks and then put into a bag and hurled down some stairs. His leg had been injured and he passed out. Then acid had been poured over his leg. The applicant also referred to later incidents when he had been detained, interrogated and beaten up. After an incident in 1995, he went away to Ankara and other parts of Turkey to work for some three and a half to four years, returning only occasionally and in disguise. He said that he returned in 1999 to his village but was detained three times, the last being in September of that year when he was detained again by gendarmes for five days and beaten up. He then left with his family and came to the United Kingdom by lorry with them.
4. The special adjudicator noted that no medical evidence was adduced to support the allegations of torture, despite an adjournment from 5 July to 3 August 2000. She observed that the applicant claimed to have been detained and tortured in 1992, attacked in 1995, that his home had been raided in 1992 and he was detained three times in 1999. Yet he had waited until September 1999 before leaving Turkey. She found that he had not been tortured and had grossly exaggerated his treatment. She also attached weight to the fact that he had not claimed asylum in any of the Continental countries through which he had travelled when coming to the United Kingdom. Finally she concluded that, in any event, he could relocate elsewhere in Turkey. The special adjudicator said this:

"The appellant has demonstrated that for 3 1/2-4 years he worked and lived unharassed and without being discriminated against in areas away from his home village. I find that it would not be unduly harsh to expect him to return to those areas. There is no reasonable likelihood that he would be persecuted if he were to return to Turkey."

5. On appeal, the Immigration Appeal Tribunal admitted further evidence in the shape of a medical report, but declined to hear any oral evidence. It accepted that the special adjudicator had made too much of the applicant's failure to claim asylum en route to the United Kingdom and that she had failed to give adequate reasons for her findings, especially those on torture.
6. However, the Tribunal concluded that her findings were fully justified by the evidence. It referred to the applicant's statement in support of his asylum claim, dated 27 October 1999, which set out chronologically what his experiences had been. That statement referred to a clash in 1992 between guerrillas and gendarmes near his village, but made no reference whatsoever to any torturing of him during that year, or even of him being detained. Nor did the statement refer to him having had any problems while working in Ankara, and yet before the special adjudicator he had alleged that he had been detained for three days and beaten up while there. The Tribunal said that it regarded the two accounts given, on the one hand in his statement of October 1999 and in his evidence to the special adjudicator on the other, as seriously inconsistent. The torture alleged to have taken place in 1992 had been extremely serious and, if true, was not something which he could have failed to mention in his original statement. The Tribunal concluded:

"The conclusions we have reached in this case are that the appellant has singly failed to give a credible account of his past experiences. In view of serious flaws in his account, we cannot be satisfied that the appellant has had either a past history of ill-treatment at the hands of the Turkish authorities or that he has a record with the authorities as a person involved with or sympathetic to the PKK or Hadep or any other political body currently of interest to the Turkish authorities. We do not therefore consider that upon return the appellant or any member of his family would be considered of adverse interest to the Turkish authorities. . .

In any event, we consider that the appellants could relocate elsewhere in Turkey. The first appellant's own experience of working in three different cities would stand him in good stead in finding employment once again . . . Relocation elsewhere, therefore, would not cause them undue hardship."

7. Consequently the Tribunal dismissed the appeal.
8. It is now contended that the Tribunal erred in law. On behalf of the applicant, Mr Maka argues that the Tribunal attached undue weight to the omissions from the applicant's September statement and acted unreasonably in holding that these admissions amounted to serious inconsistencies. It is said that the applicant had inadequate advice and representation from his then solicitor. Mr Maka stresses that proper findings as to torture are essential and yet here the special adjudicator failed to make such findings. In addition, he has emphasised that there was medical evidence before the Tribunal which was consistent with a burn having occurred, as the Tribunal accepted, yet the Tribunal still upheld the adjudicator in her finding that the 1992 torture incident had not been established. Mr Maka also stresses that there are other incidents of torture mentioned by the applicant apart from the 1992 one. He also criticised the Tribunal for having relied on the case of Turgut [2000] Imm AR 206. He contends that the Tribunal was wrong to apply Turgut to this case because in Turgut there was no evidence that the asylum-seeker in question was of any interest to the authorities. Finally, Mr Maka attacks the Tribunal's finding on internal relocation, arguing that there is no express consideration in the decision of the effect which such relocation would have on the applicant's family.
9. I have to say that I find the arguments raised this morning unpersuasive. The Tribunal was fully entitled, in my judgment, to place weight on the inconsistencies between the applicant's September statement and his evidence to the special adjudicator. The September statement was three pages of typescript referring by date to various events between 1992 and 1999. A specific date is given for the only event said to have taken place in 1992, and that particular event is described. A mere threat in the summer of 1995 is also mentioned. So there was, in fact, considerable detail in that statement. Yet it contained no mention of the alleged torture of 1992, which was said to have involved a variety of methods of torture and infliction of permanent scarring. Likewise, it made no mention of being detained for three days while working in Ankara and being beaten up. These were serious inconsistencies and they demonstrated that the special adjudicator had been justified in her findings, even though she had failed to set out her reasons.
10. Those inconsistencies cannot be explained away by inadequate legal advice. The statement of September clearly was based upon the account given by the applicant to his solicitor, and one would have expected him to have emphasised the event when he was allegedly tortured in 1992 as something which should be put at the forefront of his case. Once the applicant's credibility had been so seriously damaged, the Tribunal was entitled to reach the general conclusion which it did, namely that it was not satisfied he had been ill-treated. That then deals with the other alleged incident of torture and ill-treatment.
11. As to the special adjudicator not making proper findings, she did in fact make findings. Her failure was to give inadequate reasons for those findings. However, as I have indicated already, it was perfectly obvious why the special adjudicator had come to her conclusion on the applicant's credibility, and the tribunal was entitled to act as it did.
12. So far as the medical evidence point is concerned, the Tribunal was alive to the fact that the medical evidence produced was consistent with there having been some form of a burn suffered by the applicant at some stage, but the Tribunal went on to emphasise that the medical report did not state whether or not this scar could have been caused by a burn sustained through the pouring on of acid eight years ago. As the Tribunal said, the report says nothing about the etiology of this scar, beyond that it is consistent with "a burn". The Tribunal clearly gave proper consideration and weight to that additional piece of evidence.
13. So far as Turgut and the arguments based on that are concerned, what Turgut establishes, based on the evidence in that particular case, is that there is no automatic conclusion that in all cases Kurdish asylum seekers returned to Turkey are the subject of persecution. In my view there is nothing to suggest that this applicant is at any more risk on return than the asylum-seeker in Turgut, and the Tribunal is therefore entitled to approach that decision as it did.
14. Finally, even if the Tribunal had concluded that the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution in his own village and the area in which it was situated, it was entitled on the evidence to conclude that he and his family could reasonably locate elsewhere in Turkey. The applicant had himself worked successfully away from his village for about four years. There was no good reason why he could not be relocated internally and he had experience of so doing. There was no evidence that the family of the applicant could not reasonably locate with him elsewhere in the country, so it was open to the Tribunal to take the view that internal relocation would not be unreasonable. That, in any case, was only a subsidiary point in the light of their earlier finding that he had no well-founded fear.
15. I can see no legal error in the Tribunal's decision and no prospect of success on any appeal. In those circumstances I would dismiss this application.
16. LORD JUSTICE THORPE: I agree. The application for permission is accordingly dismissed.
ORDER: Application dismissed. Detailed assessment of the applicant's costs. (Order not part of approved judgment)