AE (Iraq) –v- The Secretary of State for the Home Department
20th May 2021
Second appeal. National of Iraq who is subject to deportation under S.3295) UKBA 2007 following a 42 month prison sentence arising from convictions under the Terrorism Act 2006. She had accepted that she had encouraged terrorism and encouraged others to commit acts of terrorism. In response she claimed asylum claiming risk due to her convictions in the UK and due to the security situation generally.
The First Tier Tribunal allowed the appeal. The applicant had not been convicted of a particularly serious crime and was not a danger to the community for the purposes of S.72NIAA 2002 and her conduct did not exclude her from protection of the Refugee Convention under Article 1F(c) of the Refugee Convention. The applicant had not actually carried out any terrorist acts herself. Although the pro-Islamic material which she distributed to encourage others was vile, there was no evidence that anyone had actually undertaken any act of terror at the applicant’s behest. The applicant was not excluded from the protection of the Refugee Convention.
The Upper Tribunal allowed the SSHD’s appeal. The activities were clearly contrary to the purposes of the UN. It applied Youssef and Al-Sirri. The FTT was also wrong to find that the applicant had not committed a particularly serious crime. The SSHD had accepted that return to Iraq would engage Article 3 ECHR but the UT found that the applicant was not a refugee.
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