Successful Bangladeshi Asylum Claim

Rudolph’s client married into a prominent Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) family in Sylhet, who are also influential in the London Metropolitan BNP (in consequence of fleeing to the UK).

Her husband was murdered while on his allotment in Bangladesh, ostensibly by a young woman in mysterious circumstances, but the family believe by his political enemies in the Awami League (AL), the party of government.

A few years ago, Rudolph had represented his client’s nephew, who obtained asylum after a successful appeal, having been previously abducted and tortured by the AL in Bangladesh.

His client’s claim however was refused on credibility grounds, despite her late husband’s brother successfully claiming asylum in the UK around the same time, which was granted on application.

The case came to court and was adjourned several times.  The Respondent was eventually directed to produce the decision minute in relation to her brother-in-law’s asylum application, which showed that the decision-maker had accepted in his case that her husband’s murder may well have been political and formed a core part of the reason for granting his application.

In the meantime, civil disturbances in Bangladesh brought down the AL government, to be replaced by an interim ‘caretaker’ government, headed by a Nobel Prize-winning economist on a promise to clean up Bangladeshi politics.

Rudolph drafted arguments based on background material to argue that, notwithstanding the change in national government, the AL is still embedded in positions of power and influence locally, therefore her husband’s murderers are even more likely to want to stop her making difficulties for them and internal relocation is not a viable alternative for her in the circumstances as a lone middle-aged (or elderly, in Bangladeshi eyes) woman from a socially conservative background.  The Tribunal agreed.