LONDON: Home Secretary Priti Patel must within the next two weeks recover to the UK an asylum seeker who was deported to France, the High Court has ruled.
Justice Wall ordered Patel to use her “best endeavors” to return a 38-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker from Darfur, identified in court proceedings as AA.
Wall’s ruling on Tuesday comes on the day that Patel launched a new bill that will allow for charges against migrants who “knowingly” arrive in Britain without permission.
AA passed through war-torn Libya, where he says he was tortured and sold into slavery, while traveling to Europe after escaping persecution in his home country.
The High Court was told that AA had nine of the 11 indicators of torture and trafficking, including scarring.
He arrived on British shores in a small boat from France on June 4, 2020, and claimed asylum.
But on Aug. 12, 2020, he was sent back to France, where authorities said he had to leave within a month, leaving him homeless and desperate.
The High Court found that AA was given a shortened asylum screening interview on arrival in Britain, which broke from the previous policy of asking questions such as “please outline your journey to the UK.”
This, the court heard, could have identified information about AA’s journey through North Africa, where migrants and refugees are commonly enslaved as they venture into Libya.
Wall said AA must return to Britain to be given a proper asylum seeker screening: “It is accepted by the defendant that these entries do not necessarily record answers actually given by interviewees but were at times completed by immigration officers from other information in their possession,” Wall added. “It is to say the least an unfortunate way to record this information.”
The judge added that he was “troubled” that no action was taken when AA disclosed to British authorities that he had been tortured.
A medical appointment was organized to assess his claims of enduring torture, but he was deported before the date it was set for.
AA’s legal representation, Maria Thomas of Duncan Lewis solicitors, said: “It is highly likely that there are many other individuals in a similar situation who were unlawfully removed and now face destitution, homelessness and the risk of being returned to a country where they are at risk of serious harm or even death.”
