## Facts

- Pauline Muzonzo Paku Kisoki, a Zairian national, sought asylum in Sweden after fleeing Zaire.
- She alleged long-term involvement with the opposition party UDPS since 1987 and close association with UDPS leadership through her husband, the personal secretary to a UDPS leader.
- She claimed that in October 1990, after refusing to allow the ruling party to hold an event at her restaurant, she and her husband were arrested by security forces.
- She alleged she was raped in her home in front of her children, then detained and brutally beaten, and later transferred to Makala prison in Kinshasa.
- She described a year of detention without trial in which guards regularly beat female detainees and repeatedly raped her, and she escaped after a bribe paid by her sister.
- Sweden denied asylum (Board of Immigration, January 1994), and the Aliens Appeal Board upheld the refusal (February 1995), reasoning that conditions in Zaire had improved and later finding no new evidence to reopen the case.
- She filed a communication under CAT Article 22, asserting that removal would violate CAT Article 3’s non-refoulement obligation, supported by UN reporting describing ongoing abuses in Zaire, including rape of female prisoners and ill-treatment of returned asylum seekers.
- Sweden argued that any past abuse did not establish a present risk and that her profile did not place her among those most exposed to persecution.

## Issues

1. Whether the communication was admissible under CAT Article 22, including in light of prior inadmissibility for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.
2. Whether Sweden would violate CAT Article 3 by expelling the author to Zaire because there were substantial grounds for believing she would face a foreseeable, real, and personal risk of torture.

## Decision

- The Committee declared the communication admissible.
- The Committee concluded that expelling the author to Zaire would violate CAT Article 3.
- The Committee determined there were substantial grounds for believing she would be in danger of being subjected to torture if returned.
- Sweden was obliged not to expel or return her to Zaire.

## Legal Principles

- CAT Article 3 prohibits expulsion, return, or extradition where there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
- The required risk must be foreseeable, real, and personal; generalized conditions alone are not determinative.
- Decisionmakers must consider all relevant factors, including evidence of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant, or mass human rights violations in the receiving state.
- Credible, detailed allegations of past torture by state agents strongly support an inference of future risk, especially when corroborated by independent country information.
- Where an individual’s political profile and past persecution align with documented ongoing targeting of the same group, Article 3 bars removal even if the sending state believes conditions have generally improved.

## Conclusion

The Committee held that Sweden could not lawfully remove a Zairian UDPS activist who had credibly reported prior detention, rape, and beatings by state agents, because independent evidence of continuing abuses and targeting of political opponents established substantial grounds to believe she faced a real and personal risk of torture upon return.


Kisoki v. Sweden, Comm. No. 41/1996, U.N. Doc. CAT/C/16/D/41/1996 (Comm. Against Torture May 8, 1996)