Updated 4.10pm
THE HIGH COURT has dismissed the challenge of a man allegedly involved with Islamic terrorists aimed at preventing his deportation to Jordan.
The state alleges the man is “the foremost organiser and facilitator of travel by extremists prepared to undertake violent action” on behalf of Isis and the “main recruiter” in Ireland for Isis.
The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, denies the State’s claims. He also rejects its allegations he has consulted with senior violent extremist leaders outside Ireland, represents a threat to national security or recruits members for Islamic extremist groups.
Torture claims
He claims he was tortured in Jordan during the 1990s due to his political activities and faces being tortured if sent back there. He claims the decision to deport him breaches his rights under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
He has resided in Ireland since 2000, on the basis that he has an Irish citizen child. Last year, the authorities decided not to renew his residency permit because the child had not been residing in the State.
After being informed the State wants to deport him, the man applied for asylum but claims the minister has unlawfully refused to make a decision on his application.
In his proceedings, he sought an order setting aside his deportation order and compelling the minister to accept his application for asylum. He also seeks a declaration he does not require the minister’s consent to apply under the 1996 Refugee Act for a declaration of refugee status.
Dismissed
In what was a lengthy and detailed judgment Mr Justice Richard Humphreys dismissed all grounds of the man’s actions.
The judge said it was “not a case where a person who had previously been tortured is being deported to face further torture.” It is a case where the man “has failed to persuade the minister either of the veracity of his account of previous ill treatment or of a real risk of future ill treatment,” he said.
The minister, the judge found, had weighed up the man’s claims concerning torture and his fears of being tortured if returned to Jordan. In his action the man had failed to show the minister’s decision was unreasonable or that there was any illegality in her assessment of his case.
The judge, after dismissing the action, adjourned the matter for a week to see if the judgment is to be appealed to the Court of Appeal. The man attended today’s ruling.
Rejected arguments
The minister had opposed the action. The minister rejected arguments that, in the consideration of the deportation order, there was failure to properly take into account the risk of the man being tortured if deported to Jordan.
The minister had considered all evidence submitted on the man’s behalf before deciding to issue the deportation order, it is claimed.
The State said there were a number of “inconsistencies and contradictions” in applications for asylum made on the man’s behalf in 2015 and 2000. The man made no mention of being tortured when submitting his application for asylum in 2000.
Since leaving that country, the man made three requests to Jordan for consular assistance in relation to his passport and his close relatives were also living in Jordan.
In his ruling the judge said there was nothing to support the proposition that the Jordanian authorities currently known anything at all about the man. There was, he said, a fundamental evidential gap at the heart of the application. There was no evidence to show any risk personal to the man.
The man, the judge added, had only put very limited information before the court or the minister. There were many details of claims of torture that could have legitimately been expected to be put before the minister which were not. The details of the basis for the man’s fears of being tortured if returned to Jordan were not set out, the judge found.
A mere possibility of ill-treatment was not sufficient, the judge added.
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