THIRD SECTION
Application no. 29240/13
Hassan AHMED OMER
against the Netherlands
lodged on 24 April 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Hassan Ahmed Omer, is a Somali national, who was born in 2009 and is currently staying in the Netherlands with no fixed abode. He is represented before the Court by Ms P. Kramer-Ograjensek, a lawyer practising in Sittard.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant applied for asylum in the Netherlands on 24 November 2009, submitting the following. He originated from a town in the south of the central Somali province of Galgaduud, where he used to run an internet café. When al-Shahaab came to power, al-Shabaab men would regularly come to his café and demand free use of his computers and internet. One day they made him “donate” one of his computers to them and from that moment on they would regularly order him to come and help them to use the computer (as they did not know how to do it), forcing him to close his café. One evening, while chatting to some friends in the open air, he complained about how al-Shabaab were treating him and how they were costing him money. The next day he was arrested by al-Shabaab who accused him of not being a good Muslim and not taking his religion seriously. After three days they told him he had been sentenced to death. Some days later he managed to escape. He subsequently left the country with the help of a fellow clan member.
The applicant’s asylum request was refused. His failure to submit documents relating to his identity, nationality and itinerary was held to affect the sincerity of his account and to detract from its credibility. It was further not considered credible that the applicant was unable to give any indication of the frequency of the visits of al-Shabaab to his café, that he would have been so careless as to criticise al-Shabaab in public, and that he would have been able to escape as easily as he claimed to have done.
The final decision was taken by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State on 4 January 2013.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains that, if returned to Somalia, he will be exposed to treatment contrary to Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. He submits that the Dutch immigration authorities ought to have assumed that his account was credible and to have examined his asylum application on its merits. He further argues that the security situation in Galgaduud is so bad that he requires international protection.
QUESTIONS
1. Is it the Government’s intention to expel the applicant to Mogadishu? If so, for what reasons do the Government believe that the violence in Mogadishu is no longer of such a level of intensity that anyone in the city, except possibly those who are exceptionally well-connected to “powerful actors”, would be at real risk of treatment prohibited by Article 3 of the Convention (see Sufi and Elmi v. the United Kingdom, nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07, § 293, 28 June 2011)? Would the applicant personally be at risk of such treatment if expelled to Mogadishu?
2. In the view of the Government, could the applicant safely reach his hometown of Ceeldhere without being at real risk of treatment in breach of Article 3? Moreover, can it be said that he has recent experience of living in Somalia and can therefore avoid coming to the attention of al-Shabaab (see Sufi and Elmi, cited above, § 295)?
3. Alternatively, is there an internal flight alternative elsewhere in southern and central Somalia that the applicant could travel to, to which he could gain admittance and where he could settle without being exposed to a real risk of Article 3 ill-treatment (see Sufi and Elmi, cited above, § 294)?
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