Malkandi

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. LIFE IN IRAQ AND IRAN

Malkandi was born in Sulaimaniya, Iraqi Kurdistan, in 1958 and given the name Sarbaz Abulgani Mohammed. He entered the University of Bagdad in 1978 and married in his last year of study. With the escalation of the Iran-Iraq war, Malkandi was conscripted into the Iraqi army. But when in the mid-1980s he was ordered to report to an active military unit, he deserted the army and returned to his hometown, MALKANDI v. HOLDER 10769 where he remained for a year until learning that the army was planning a sweep for deserters.

Malkandi hails from a prominent family in his hometown and used family connections to arrange to flee to Iran with his wife. There they met up with the peshmerga, who were at the time Iran’s allies in its war with Iraq. The peshmerga helped Malkandi settle in Iran, where his first wife later gave birth to his daughter. Near the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Malkandi’s wife committed suicide, prompting Malkandi to leave Iran with his daughter.

Due to his deserter status, Malkandi feared returning to Iraq, so he arranged to be smuggled into Pakistan, where he and his daughter lived in…