MU & Anor v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The appellants are two brothers, Turkish nationals of Kurdish ethnicity, who entered the United Kingdom in June 2023 and claimed asylum. Another brother had left Turkey in 2019 and had been recognised as a refugee in the United Kingdom. The appellants said they supported the HDP and Yeşil Sol Parti, had each been arrested twice, accused of supporting the PKK and ill-treated, and would be arrested, tortured and possibly killed if returned. The first appellant placed his arrests in 2023. He said he was pressured into agreeing to act as an informer and fled when he did not cooperate. The second appellant placed his detention in 2021. The Secretary of State refused the claims on 1 May 2025. She accepted the appellants' identities, nationality, ethnicity and support for the HDP and Yeşil Sol Parti. She also accepted that the feared treatment would engage the Refugee Convention, would amount to persecution, and that, if the accounts were credible, neither state protection nor internal relocation would be available. The central issue was therefore credibility. Both appellants gave oral evidence and were cross-examined. The refugee brother attended the hearing but chose not to give evidence, although he had provided a witness statement. The appeals were heard together in the First-tier Tribunal at Newport.