good morning may it please the court my name is jesse lloyd on behalf of petitioner while esteban acho as in the prior case this concerns for national who has been found to be a persecutor of others on account of his work in the police force  people in the course of his work as a member of the police force in guatemala city right some of those people were tortured he never took part in the torture and as you know when he  that some of them will be tortured it's important to clarify he just there's no indication he knew an individual person specifically would be quartered he was aware generally speaking that some of the people he would he do that might be thought to be assisting within the meaning of the statute that is that is primarily his roles were arrested and i use that primarily that's a legal word is there anything else i'm thinking for example he took statements from people who had been tortured and those statements i gather are being made as a result of the torture because that assistance and he knew that they had been tortured he talked about how many houses they were they were beat up and saw him so i mean realized somewhat after the fact in many cases that the testimony in fact that he given may have been false and so he's not necessarily certain that it's in fact been coerced testimony and that in that respect or that it's false it's also important to notice that has to be on account of their political opinions this was in the context of a civil war the court has designate has indicated that arrest that for example the normal activity of us or no i recognize torture is not but that the mere arrest of guerrillas is not per se it's not per se on account of their political opinion it's also recognized he noticed widespread abuses which again in no way excuses them but it's important to note that not necessarily all those abuses not necessarily all of those statements that were taken were in fact illicit on account of the people's political opinion he noticed unfortunately people were beaten if they didn't have assisting and torture myself not enough he has to assist in persecution whether me torture or other forms of mistreatment on account of our protective ground exactly and i'm so what's your argument as to why this is not on account of a protected ground what's going on and who are these people and wonder why are they being tortured to some degree the record does not demonstrate because he was not involved in the part in the torture and therefore is not in a position to know specifically why specifically what the motivation was and therefore ok and his burden of proof is that to show the reason for the torture well if there isn't anything if the regulations in a case that if the evidence indicates he persecuted somebody on  correct his assistant he did not provide assistance his activities were too attenuated to be designated as assistance ok secondarily his actions his arresting of of suspected guerrillas do not do not amount to actions on account of a crack the ground third to degree the court were to find he did assist in in the mistreatment of others the third part of that inquiry is then again it's not there's no indication that he did that based on their political grounds or that necessarily they were abused on account of their political opinion or they could have been arrested for something battery or something correct or i guess on people they were real correct it's also important argument is the most the focus needs should be on the motivation for his action here arrested people because in the context of a civil war because either they were committing criminal offense such as assault and battery or they were guerrillas and therefore expect suspected ascension of it trying to overthrow the government those are the actions that he took and those are the motivations that he had put in to one side but he had to have the motivation or merely whether the torturer had to have the motivation for the purpose of this question that his motivation is irrelevant so long as the motivation of the torturer satisfies and i say i don't ask you to concede that but ok but now just looking at whether or not the guerrillas are engaging in protected behavior assuming now we're not talking private grudges we're talking about behavior and once you see their engagement back protected behavior i guess you could then ask the question are they being persecuted because of that but i'm just asking is the behavior of the gorillas protected under the statute to the degree that it depends specifically what the gorillas are doing and in the sense that if in the context of a civil war traditional was considered normal activities is not protected so in that no however i would concede that being arrested and being the being tortured would be would rise to the level persecution on account of political opinion but i think i thought we just established that being tortured by itself is not on account of being tortured simply being tortured so i'm trying to figure out on account of a protected behavior whether it's simply a very bad treatment that rises to the level of persecution or torture you still need the connection to the cause of a protected ground correct correct so i'm asking you were the guerrillas who are being tortured were they engaged in a protected activity i would and i would answer no the reason being simply the record at least at the i'll have to say that arresting people he knows will be tortured and taking statements from people when the statements are as a result of torture and he knows that there is a result of torture that's right and that's enough for me to be assisting person verses or anyone who was attempting to overthrow the government to the extent that overthrow the government was politically motivated and the guerrillas were in a civil war trying to effectuate a change in the government land to that extent so to the degree that these guerrillas are engaged in armed conflict with the government they're not engaged in productive activity well not necessarily your honor because this court also ha engaged in protective not once not once the not once the evidence indicates that there was participation and persecution but persecution in hale's necessarily protected ground i don't think that the government has any because if they're not engaged in protected activity he can participate in their murder and he is not assisting within the meaning of the statute he may be a very bad person and i mean all kinds of reasons we don't want to hear but  and i think and i understand the concern or but i think what happens here and the context of an actual hearing is once there is evidence at all that there is any kind of political and that's right any kind of persecution or torture question is whether or not he's bringing in new arguments and he's bringing in the same old arguments that's clearly we have no jurisdiction but it is raining in new arguments that really would quite transformative argument in favor of his it's evident though going throughout the record that he's not i would say it also goes to our attenuation argument in that if his activities are even geared towards the same aims as the torturers it