AZ v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The appellant, AZ, a citizen of Afghanistan, appealed under the Nationality, Immigration, and Asylum Act 2002 against the Secretary of State's decision of 6 December 2024 refusing the protection claim he had made on 1 March 2024. His account was that in September 2013 his cousins SQ and SD, angered by his father's repeated refusal of SQ's proposal to marry his then teenage sister, raided the family home, stabbing his sister and killing his 11-year-old brother; both cousins confessed and were sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. He left Afghanistan in 2019 on a scholarship to study civil engineering in India, where discussions about religion led him away from Islam. After the Taliban took power in 2021 the cousins were released, aligned themselves with the Taliban and confronted the family on three occasions, after which the family lived in hiding. The appellant arrived in the UK on a student visa in February 2024 and claimed asylum a month later. The Secretary of State accepted the murder, the attack and the three confrontations, but disputed that he had genuinely rejected Islam and that he remained at risk from the cousins, contending his atheism was a fabrication. The appeal was heard at Taylor House on 3 August 2026.