good morning your honor good morning honorable court randall hammoud representing m i think the important beginning in this case is to understand that his testimony is deemed to be credible because the administrative agency to be on a board of immigration appeals and united or an immigration judge did not find to the credibility determinations applicants factual contentions are deemed to be truth that's the case that we've faced here and what we have here is we have a lebanese national who is a sunni muslim persecution percent but even the fact of threats with stating to the person we have your name can constitute persecution under an agenda versus ashcroft the seventy fourth fifth third at seven seventy two seven seventy although they formally withdrawn forces from the country they still have a perverse and pervasive influence in lebanon of killed or suspect are suspected of killing nine  list in your name is on the wrong list your honor i think the court did almost a judicial notice of that and i think in this situation talking about a terrorist state trying to exercise complete influence over the country of lebanon they were doing that in two thousand and five and they today is that there's been total ethnic cleansing throughout iraq because of the shiite sunni dichotomy unfortunately and tragically for all concerned and this man is a sunni and he's and basically lebanon where the shiites are trying to extend their influence through interference in lebanon and then in two thousand and seven united states imposed sanctions and president bush condemned the killing of the parliamentarian syria's very active in lebanon even more activist a myth and they were in two thousand and five and this man is and it's protested to his detainers the syrian personality took him into custody that he's basically does that he's lebanese and he told them he doesn't like what's going on in lebanon but he can't go too far without you know argument we're talking about a preponderance of evidence and the question is is you're a proponent of evidence of this man goes back to eleven and he'll you to be tortured or intimidated or persecuted by the syrians because his name has been on their list for asked i think the question that really goes to the heart of this case which is does the testimony he gave regarding being stopped at the checkpoints really amount to persecution or rather because of the standard we heard as a compel the conclusion that it was persecution and he claims he went back to lebanon seven times between one thousand nine hundred five and two thousand and he was detained twice slapped a few times with a rifle but once and they tried to steal his car twice and he told them they eventually let them go so i think that evidence doesn't compel the conclusion that the district or the i'm sorry the immigration judge with wrong to say that his fear that he would be caught if he returned to lebanon was unfounded because they when we follow the priest in this case it was prior to this court deciding the ramadan case and in ramadan the court has now held that this court's review of issues of law include mix questions of  his freedom is going to be threatened i mislead if he could show persecution being child beaten those sorts of things those are the sorts of things that courts have found to constitute persecution but in this case where you have as a short attention some minor physical abuse and his being release jurisdiction is limited to the administrative record there are some exceptions so that this court is recognized but certainly anyone who reads the newspapers knows there's been a lot of changes in lebanon if mr homuth believes that there it's unclear that there are those facts out there but obviously if he has something if he did not that's correct and i think the question would be right the question be whether they're better now than they were in two thousand and obviously since the syrian army has departed that would change the can whether or not he has a well founded fear of persecution if you returns but i said i was lucky if he wants to make that record he can move to to reopen in the for the board fifty six the court there distinguished away their earlier stories of fissures seventy nine hundred thirty nine fifty five and stated that if there's a change in the country conditions that were not manifest necessarily look to counsel to reopen the cia this case is basically i think a case of threats of intimidation by you know a terrorist state of a person in his country that the terrorist state consider