Aleksanyan

MEMORANDUM **

Samvel Aleksanyan petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) summary affirmance of the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his applications for asylum, withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).

Because the IJ made no express adverse credibility determination, we accept Aleksanyan’s testimony as true, see Mamouzian v. Ashcroft, 390 F.3d 1129, 1133 (9th Cir.2004), and hold that past persecution has been established. See Chand v. INS, 222 F.3d 1066, 1074 (9th Cir.2000) (holding that where physical harm was combined with threats, the harm is severe enough to rise to the level of persecution). The circumstances surrounding the car accident that injured Aleksanyan and his wife, coupled with the threatening phone calls referencing the accident, compel the conclusion that the accident was a response to Aleksanyan’s refusal to participate in the scam and his plan to testify regarding the scam. See Chouchkov v. INS, 220 F.3d 1077, 1081, 1083 (9th Cir.2000). Thus, the harm was at least in part on account of political opinion. See Mamouzian, 390 F.3d at 1134 (reaffirming that “retaliation against an individual who…

dissenting:

I regret that I cannot agree that the evidence compels the conclusion that petitioner Samvel Aleksanyan was persecuted on the basis of political opinion, the enumerated ground he asserts in order to establish eligibility for asylum. Aleksanyan was a victim of crime, not the government.

That the location of the crime was a state-owned factory and that the primary villain, the factory director, had relatives in the government (and later became an elected official himself) did not necessarily turn the criminal activity into something governmental. The criminals presumably intended to enrich themselves; there is nothing to indicate that the government was behind the scam. Aleksanyan may have been beaten up after refusing to participate in the crime, but he says he was beaten up by unknown thugs, not by the police or other government officers. Indeed, Aleksanyan’s later troubles began again only after the prosecutor—an officer of the government—pressed him to testify. According to his own narrative, Aleksanyan was not a crusader against government corruption, but was only a reluctant participant in the effort of the government prosecutor to catch the criminals responsible…