A TEENAGE girl who claimed she fled to Ireland two years ago because she was in fear of a criminal gang who abducted and tortured her and murdered her brother has lost a High Court bid to overturn a report recommending she be refused asylum.
The girl, then aged 13, came here unaccompanied in April 2007 from Nigeria. Her mother and two sisters had arrived here a year earlier and claimed asylum. Their claim was rejected and that refusal is being challenged in a pending judicial review.
The mother applied for asylum for the girl in August 2007 and the girl was interviewed a month later by a Refugee Applications Commissioner. A report issued the following day recommended she should not be declared a refugee.
In her interview, the girl made similar claims to her mother and siblings that they feared they would be killed by the Oodua Peoples Congress or its related criminal gang the Oriyomi, if sent back to Nigeria.
Lawyers for the girl, now aged 15, alleged that the Refugee Applications Commissioner report rejecting the girl’s account was flawed and biased.
In his reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice John Cooke said the girl retained a right to appeal the report’s findings to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.
