PM ( Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The applicant, a national of Iran, travelled to the United Kingdom via France, where he had not claimed asylum and had given untruthful information about his identity. His asylum claim rested on an account of his accidental involvement in the death of an officer of the Iranian State Security Organisation, Ettela'at. According to that account, his father had died at the hands of Ettela'at, and an officer of that organisation named Reza had thereafter pressed the applicant's mother to enter a temporary marriage known as sigheh, in effect for sex; it was in the situation so created that the officer came by his death. The Immigration Judge treated the applicant's conduct in France as damaging to his credibility, relying on Section 8, and rejected substantially the whole of the account: the applicant could not describe the political beliefs or activities that had led to his father's detention and death, the sigheh arrangement was thought most unlikely for a member of Ettela'at, and the account of a visit to his home by the security authorities had been elaborated only at the hearing. On reconsideration the Senior Immigration Judge held at the first stage that the Immigration Judge's error in treating Ettela'at as distinct from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security had had no effect on the determination, so the reconsideration did not proceed to a second stage. The applicant sought permission to appeal.