MO v Home Secretary: appellant granted protection despite asylum claim failing

The First-tier Tribunal has granted humanitarian protection and found a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of an Iraqi national who claimed he faced a real risk of an honour killing on return, even though his asylum claim under the Refugee Convention was ultimately dismissed.

The appellant, identified only as MO under an anonymity order made to protect his identity pending the outcome of the case, is a Kurdish citizen of Iraq who left the country unlawfully. He appealed against a Home Office decision refusing his application for leave to remain, made on protection and human rights grounds. His case centred on a claim that he had been in an extra-marital relationship with a woman in Iraq, that the relationship had been discovered, and that the woman had subsequently been killed by her family, leaving him at risk of the same fate should he return.

Hearing the appeal at Columbus House on 11 September 2026, Judge Webb dealt first with a late application by MO's solicitor to allow his partner, then abroad on holiday, to give evidence remotely. Permission was granted, but the witness was ultimately unable to connect to the hearing, and the case proceeded without her live evidence.

On credibility, the judgement found MO's account generally consistent, sufficiently detailed and supported by country information, including photographic evidence and a record of communications referencing his partner's death. Minor inconsistencies in his account were found not to undermine its core, though his failure to claim asylum during an earlier stage of his journey through Europe, and his failure to explain efforts to retrieve messages from an old social media account, were treated as factors adversely affecting his credibility, in line with section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004.

Applying the two-stage test required under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the tribunal found that MO's claimed characteristic, being a male potential victim of an honour crime, did not amount to membership of a particular social group for the purposes of the Refugee Convention, since the motivation for such harm was revenge within a family rather than a matter of wider societal perception. The asylum claim was accordingly dismissed.

However, applying the lower standard of proof to the remaining issues, the judgement found MO had shown a genuine subjective fear of persecution, that his account of the affair and his partner's death was more likely than not true, and that he would face treatment amounting to persecution or serious harm if located by her family. Drawing on country guidance material concerning blood feuds and tribal violence in Iraq, the tribunal found the authorities would be unwilling to provide sufficient protection, and that the family's demonstrated ability to trace him, including approaches made at his father's home, meant internal relocation would not offer a safe alternative.

On that basis, the tribunal found MO qualified for humanitarian protection and that there was a real risk he would face treatment contrary to Article 3 if returned to Iraq. Those findings were treated as determinative, meaning it was unnecessary to reach conclusions on the separate issue of his identity documents or on his Article 8 family life claim.

The appeal was dismissed on asylum grounds but allowed on humanitarian protection and human rights grounds. No fee award was made.