An Egyptian migrant with suspected links to the Muslim Brotherhood has won a UK asylum appeal after running over a policeman in his home country.
The claimant, referred to as ‘MM’ in court, previously had his human rights application rejected as he was found guilty of crimes connected to the organisation.
However, his case will now be heard by another court after an immigration judge decided there had been an error in the way the evidence was treated.
It is claimed MM, who ‘does not speak English’, had hit someone with his car in Egypt in August 2021 and police wanted compensation.
He could not afford to pay and so fled to Britain where he submitted an asylum bid – having travelled via Libya, Italy and France.
During an interview in the UK, he said the person he hit was a police officer and that his family had told him the Egyptian authorities were looking for him and had been to their home.
MM claimed the police officer had said he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood – an Islamist movement designated a terrorist organisation by the Egyptian government.
The migrant had been charged with collecting money for the Muslim Brotherhood but claimed he had never been politically active.
The claimant, referred to in court as MM, previously had his human rights application rejected after being found guilty of crimes connected to the Muslim Brotherhood (file image)
In August 2022 an Egyptian court found him guilty, alongside others, of crimes connected to the organisation.
His asylum claim was dismissed on credibility grounds but he appealed – claiming that the judge failed to engage with some of the documents he had provided.
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Hannah Graves concluded mistakes had been made and MM’s case needs to be heard afresh.
The case will be reheard in the first-tier tribunal at a later date.
Judge Graves said: ‘I am therefore unable to find any basis in the evidence before the judge, to support the finding that MM failed to provide these documents at the earliest stage.
‘Or that the timing of the production of them prevented the Home Office from having time to undertake proper scrutiny, given they were submitted before the decision, the review and the hearing before the judge.
‘Accordingly, I find there is an error in the treatment of this evidence, which gave rise to a core adverse credibility point with regard to [MM’s] credibility overall, but also with regard to what weight could be placed on the documents themselves. As a result, it is a material error.
‘I am mindful too that [MM] is a litigant in person who does not speak English and who has struggled to engage with the appeal process.
‘[MM] had provided photographic evidence as part of his claim of attendance at a Muslim Brotherhood demonstration in the UK in November 2022.’
The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in parts of the world including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The organisation was established more than 50 years ago.
By mid-2014, the Brotherhood was a range of ‘loosely associated’ groups but had no single leader in Britain.
