This traumatic case involved a man who was brutally tortured in Nigeria. After his torture, he was forced to swear an oath that he would not reveal to anybody his ill-treatment nor anything about the ritualistic and horrific murders that he had witnessed. He was marked with wounds to indicate that he had sworn such an oath. He initially did not reveal any of this in his asylum application as he was too traumatised. He also feared retribution for breaching the oath, particularly as one of the ritualistic murders that he was forced to watch was the killing of a man and his family who had broken a similar oath of silence.
His asylum claim was rejected at both First Tier and Upper Tribunals, both these courts having failed to take into account a wealth of medical and country evidence. The appeal before the Court of Appeal was subsequently rejected on the basis of the “second appeals test”. Christa Fielden will seek to challenge this decision before the ECtHR.
