AC-2025-LON-001440 - [2025] EWHC 2472 (Admin)

The claimant challenges the decision of the defendant on 14 February 2025 to refuse his application for relocation to the UK under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP). Permission to bring judicial review was granted on all grounds by MacDonald J on 25 June 2025. He also ordered expedition of the hearing.

The claimant was a judge in Afghanistan for over 20 years, until the Taliban took control of that country in 2021. Between 2011 and 2016, he was a judge in the Anti-Terrorism Court (ACT) in Kabul. At the time of the Taliban takeover, the claimant had become Director of a District Court, where he continued to hear criminal cases. The claimant says that a significant number of the criminal cases he tried concerned Taliban members and persons related to such members. He estimates that he acted as director of the panel of judges (which involved leading the decision making, signing off on the judgment and sentencing) in approximately 360 cases that concerned Taliban members or other terrorist activity.

Amongst the cases with which the claimant states he was involved was the trial of Mohammed Khan, a Taliban member who organised a suicide bombing attack in 2010 at a supermarket in Kabul used by many foreign nationals, including members of the UK government and Armed Forces. Mohammed Khan was tried in 2014 and the claimant sentenced him to death. The claimant also was one of the judges who tried Maulawi Qudratullah, a prominent Taliban member who was involved in terrorist activity. Sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment, Maulawi Qudratullah was released when the Taliban took power and is said to have become Governor of Panjshir Province. Several of the death sentences pronounced by the claimant had not been carried out when the Taliban took power and those condemned have been released by the Taliban. The claimant says he also made decisions against individuals who engaged in money laundering transfers and exchange to and from Pakistan, with a view to funding Taliban activity.

The claimant has filed two witness statements. As well as deposing to the matters mentioned above, these statements describe the claimant receiving training on equipment and security from HMG officials, whilst in the ATC; representatives of HMG sitting on occasion with the judges of the ATC; HMG assisting with moving the ATC to more secure premises and providing computers, databases and other office equipment for the court’s use; refurbishing the new compound so that judges could be separated from prisoners; the ATC judges producing reports on their work for presentation to British officials, such officials coming to the claimant’s office to collect such reports; and the claimant attending seminars and conferences, including those organised by HMG. Amongst the training sessions the claimant attended was a “Public Security Judicial Forensic Awareness” course held in June/July 2013. The course certificate is signed by Ms Terri Carpenter, who is described on the certificate as the Rule of Law Counsellor in the British Embassy, Kabul. In August 2021, the claimant emailed Gemma Paolucci, then the Head of the Counter-terrorism team in Kabul, attaching photos of himself pictured with other judges of the ATC.

The claimant says he was the victim of a roadside bomb attack in 2008, which left him bed ridden for six months and permanently disabled.

A witness who is referred to as NAR has filed a witness statement in support of the claimant. NAR started work as a judge of the ATC a few days before the claimant in 2011. They served together there for five years. NAR and the claimant sat together on Taliban cases, hearing four or five cases together each week. In particular, NAR sat with the claimant on the trial of the supermarket bomber, Mohammed Khan. NAR also says that the ATC “received and was provided with a lot of assistance from the British Government from when the Court was established whilst I and [the claimant] served as Judges”. According to NAR, “the judges were more focussed on dealing with the actual cases, therefore a lot of the contact between the British and the Anti-Terrorism Court went through the Directors (who were the managers in the court focussed more on administrative duties, they would decide which judges were appointed to each case)”.

NAR describes the assistance given by the British authorities to help the ATC to move premises, so it could be better protected. The claimant’s first witness statement describes the move as taking place in 2016. NAR says at paragraph 10 of his statement that “as an incentive to encourage judges to attend the British Government paid us approximately $50 to $100 at the end of each session. I attended several of these with [the claimant], however, due to the case load of the Anti-Terrorism Court it was not possible for all judges to attend all sessions. Therefore, we took it in turn to attend.” So far as concerns reports for HMG, NAR recalls “in particular a man called David from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” who “would come to our offices to take verbal reports about our cases, the step by step process that we took in hearing the cases, and the ultimate decisions that we made. The British officials would come to our offices almost every month, or every other month at the latest.”

NAR’s evidence is that he and the claimant “carried out the same work... in the Anti-Terrorism Court ... He received similar training sessions and guidance”. NAR was serving at the ATC at the time of the Taliban’s takeover and was brought to the UK as part of the evacuation exercise known as Operation Pitting.