ECtHR - T.A. v. Sweden, Application No. 48866/10

The Court first declared the general situation in Iraq to be not sufficiently serious to warrant the conclusion that any return to Iraq would violate Article 3 irrespective of personal circumstances.

Turning to the Applicant’s particular situation, the Court accepted that those associated with security companies employed by the international forces in Iraq faced a greater risk of persecution from militias than the general population. However, the Court were sceptical of an internal contradiction in the Applicant’s account and evidence, namely his brother’s documented claim that four people went into T.A.’s house a year after it was allegedly completely destroyed. This problem, coupled with the general lack of evidence for his claims and the near six year time lapse since the relevant acts of persecution, led the Court to reject T.A.’s Article 2 and 3 complaints.

Two judges of the Court dissented from the majority opinion, on account of the Applicant’s former employment placing him in a specific risk category, the escalating violence in Iraq in 2013, the overall plausibility of T.A.’s account, the overly onerous credibility test applied by the Swedish authorities, and the majority according too much weight to the alleged discrepancy in his account.

Related complaints under Article 8 and Article 1 of Protocol 7 were rejected by the court as manifestly ill-founded. Regarding the former, the Applicant had been split up from his family since 2007, and a decision to deport would not change this. For the latter, the Applicant had had ample opportunity to make representations against his removal.