denying relief although my brief addresses several issues today i want to focus on the protection under the convention against torture claim and we would submit that the evidence compels the conclusion that petitioner would be tortured if you returns to china as set forth in  our brief the petitioner contends on the adverse credibility findings not supported by substantial evidence and that's so forth at length however even in the absence of credible testimony petitioners argue throughout proceedings that he's entitled to protection under the convention against torture based on the independent evidence that's contained in the rocker this includes the background evidence supported and submitted in support of the five hundred and eighty nine as this court found and new rule country conditions alone can play a decisive role and granting cat relief additionally petitioners the i j a thought that your client did not fall within the lists of th in the country report political and religious dissidents lawyers members of the minority weaker ethnic group practitioners of the banned falun gong spiritual movement and so he didn't fall within those categories of individuals facing heightened threats of torture  obviously there's a heightened risk of torture for certain people and the references that human rights watch report which says torture is particularly common in severe in murder cases try it related crimes and corruption cases and also didn't find that shot was a key of that of crime either so so the i j a says look there may be a common use of torture in chinese presence but it's aimed at these categories that your client doesn't fall into and therefore there is not he hasn't shown a particular rise risk of torture if he returns to china well i think with respect to that i'm looking at all of the background evidence it talks about different classifications of people the human rights report  specifically talks about ordinary criminals being subject to torture and prison criminal defendants and torture is used to extract confessions and it's used in all throughout the throughout the criminal justice system in china it's not just simply related to a certain class of individual certainly some there is a heightened risk but in this case i would submit there is a heightened risk we have an individual who the chinese government placed on our poll and he was on the public in our poll for a while there's an arrest warrant additionally in looking at the evidence the independent evidence submitted they've harmed and harassed his mother an ex wife they contacted a chinese national in the united states to assist and the investigation of him they a former coworker know about any of that except through his testimony yes through the statements that were submitted to the court as well as yours of the state and additionally it didn't give much weight to like the letters  limited probative in that case the the issue in that case was there was an individual in china who told the respondent in removal proceedings that the chinese government was looking for him here we actually have statements from people themselves saying fifteen she says everything about this as this was lawful in two thousand and sixteen she says i was arrested detained and tortured and the inconsistency between those letters caused to say i don't find them very persuasive and one of the issues that we have with the agency in this case and examining this is we have a detained respondent who's lucky to be able to get any documentation in support of this case with people who are obviously reluctant to do so in light of the fact that the record shows that the chinese government monitors communications and things like that the st letter said what it said was we specifically asked for a nd letter to address for their information regarding what had happened to her and clued in the issue with the criminal prosecution and we got the nd letter that was submitted we additionally have the ex wife slaughter's there's two letters that were submitted by her and we have his mother statements as well about them harassing her wanting on the petitioner to come back to china so we have that we also have his fiance's testimony which was largely overlooked and his fiance was in contact with his mother in china and learned a lot of information about how the government was looking for her fiance or the citizen it doesn't really get to the torture issue which you were you were focusing on as to why he was a particular particularize risk is more likely than  he individually would be tortured on his return to china well in this particular case i believe that it does because you have a person the chinese government does finds is an overseas fugitive this i think the background evidence illustrates that where the chinese government believes a case is important or high profile and i mean i think you need to get to the high profile they clearly believe this is an important case and someone with an important case just because it got in the rest worn out on him by definition is an important case no not not just because of the arrest warrant we have the arrest warrant we had to enter paul notice but they've gone to great lengths that apparently the chinese government according to the evidence in the record sure the links are all that great if you've got somebody who you're trying to arrest interpol notices and exceptional but in the end you're going to have to point to something in the country reports against a tough standard more likely than not tortured and so compelling that the finder of fact couldn't have concluded to the contrary so what what's the best criminal justice system that according to the human rights watch tortures nationwide common serious and entrenched and as i stated this is a more significant case than normal that they have taken the step of contacting someone in the united states to try chinese national united states to try to assist they've harmed his ex wife and this particular case according to her letters they frequently contacted his mother multiple times every ten to fifteen days for a while trying to to get her to get hen to come back to the country all of this evidence is in the rocker this isn't a normal case for the chinese government for whatever reason maybe it's because the mayor was involved in the business dealings you know it but it is not being considered a normal case they knew he was in detention according to the record but still continued to contact the family to try to get him to come back to china and when examining this along with all the background evidence in the case talking about the pervasiveness of porter within the criminal justice system in order to obtain confessions this is a reason we don't have an extradition treaty with china because of the because of the torture used in confessions because of the ninety nine percent conviction rate  may please the court victor lawrence on behalf of the attorney general this court she denied this petition for review substantial evidence supports the agency's adverse credibility determination which  asylum and withholding of removal in addition that same adverse credibility determination also infects his claim for protection under the convention against torture but even when we set aside the adverse credibility terminations look at the torture claim on its merits  agency relied on substantial evidence in the record to conclude that mr shank did not demonstrate a clear probability of experiencing mistreatment rising to the level of torture if he's imprisoned and returned to china it listening to my petitioners argument i find that what he's doing is conflating the idea that china has an interest in this particular individual with the idea that he would be tortured and the two don't match yes they have an interest in him they feel they do have an interpol red notice on file to seek his extradition they do believe that he stole ten million dollars from the public or defrauded the public at the ten million dollars so they have a clear interest in him but that doesn't equate to the fact that he's going to be well your honor i think the other part of the human rights report that you pointed out earlier where it says that actual torture is inflicted on people of high profile nature who committed crimes of murder and political dissidents lawyers activists it's activists etc are the one million dollars from the public funds that wouldn't qualify that seems pretty high profile seems kind of thing the government be interested in but it's also speculation your honor and it's the petitioners burden here to prove that there's a clear probability it's a speculation i mean it is it speculative the that's what he's accused of it may be speculative whether he did it but the concern expressed is that in china this is tim is set up to extract confessions so they think he did it whether he had done it or not that's enough to raise least a serious specter of torture no but when i was respond to your question said that there's speculation here we're talking about speculation that he will actually suffer mistreatment rising to the level of torture and i'm encouraged clifton's point is that there is no speculation about what he's being accused of and when you look at what he's being accused of and match that with the country condition reports why isn't about people being forced into confessions and mistreatment of prisoners does not equate to a particular rise threat against mr showing that he indeed will suffer torture for you refer and returns to china so when we just point to generalized evidence that would that would really apply to any person we're going back to china who's committed any sort of crime we're coming back to the question that judge you could have posed which is that some categories in some of these country reports as being a particular risk now of knowledge that the reports don't use the language of immigration law so they don't speak in terms of risk more likely than not but it does leave the impression that at least certain categories and this person may not be perceived as an enemy of the state as in someone who's trying to overthrow the government but he's an enemy of the state in terms of somebody who's believed or alleged to have stolen ten million dollars of public funds why wouldn't that push this person into the category of those at greater risk well there's no evidence in the record to support that  t what to support the idea that he's at greater risk because he committed this particular crime there is evidence in the record to support the idea that if he committed a crime such as murder a political if he was a political dissident or if he was an activist or a lawyer there is evidence  record to support that idea that he would suffer from torture but there's nothing that says in the record that there's a particular stretch just based on the country conditions evidence that because he committed this particular crime that he has a clear probability that if he goes back to china he's going to tortured there's nothing in the record to support that other at least some references and i'll have to go back and gather them again i guess but about china's campaign against public corruption and people who may  live with public officials and you've got somebody who gets access to and figures out a way to squirrel avoid ten million dollars of public phone the prospect of that being undone a fight is as a target in this anti corruption campaign isn't hard inference well that's where we're we're conflating two things that don't deserve to be conflated in my view your honor the idea that china is interested in people like this individual who defrauded people out of millions of dollars that's one thing we agree that there's evidence in the record to support the idea that china is interested in  and this is why the board's decision supported by sense of it's because they point to the fact that there's nothing in the record to support the fact that there's a particular threat against this individual for the crime that he committed now you know the petitioner had had ample time during the course of his proceedings to develop as much evidence as he possibly could in your honor pointed out that that judge appear to point out that there were some letters that were submitted but the immigration judge reasonably believed that they were lied on here saying they were inconsistent sees within those letters and those letters did nothing to establish the idea that there was a clear probability that mr sze would suffer torture if he returned to china and that's why this court should deny this petition for review it's a it's a it's a burden issue he had mr shang had the burden to show that he was eligible for protection under the convention against torture to do so he has to show that there is a clear probability it's more likely than not that if he returns to china that he would be tortured he relied on a lot of record evidence to try to make that case but when we review the record evidence it doesn't quite get there there's there's an idea that some people suffer torture for some types of crimes as you're on a pointed out but there's nothing in the record to support the idea that an individual such as mr xi hang based on the country conditions evidence alone is or or the additional letters that he submitted is going to show that it's more probable than not that he that he's going to suffer torture then when you combine that with the adverse credibility determination as well it's even more evidence in the in the agency's favor if you will to or to show that they deceive relied on substantial evidence to determine that that he did not merit protection under the convention against torture if your honour's wish i could go into the average credibility determination briefly which which is there's an overall  inconsistency in mr she hangs claim on the one hand he's claiming that he had this business investment business where he was raising money and it was legal and it was indorsed by the country of china that they were actually  read notice we have no idea that he's has an arrest warrant from the city of munch on so when the immigration judge looked at this and he's saying you know this guy is telling me that everything's perfectly legal and on the up and up and the chinese government endorsed and on the other hand they are seeking his extradition for defrauding for him to forty people out of ten one million dollars as a result of the same company that he said was legal they determined that was a reasonable inconsistency and they asked him questions about it to  give him a chance to explain why that was not an inconsistency and here's where mr shang went on a series of shifting explanations that's captured in our brief at page thirty five dollars and also in the record between pages six million fifty five thousand seven hundred and twenty five you claim several different things st that the chinese government wanted him to confess to subverting the communist regime he claimed that he is being controlled by an american organization he claimed that the house arrest on religious persecution was a front for some for some other activity that he was doing at his home and he also claimed that he was being retaliated by this particular mayor with respect to the arrest warrant because the mayor didn't  didn't profit i guess enough from his business so he goes on this series of shifting explanations and as this court is where from its opinion in zhamnov versus holder in other cases there's no requirement for the immigration judge to accept a particular person explanations and in this case there just wasn't a ring of truth to all the explanations we had a guy who comes in st with an asylum claim claiming religious persecution that starts to not going well for him as  far as the evidence he's presenting rising to the level of torture etc but then then he shifts and says oh it's about my business a bit and before that by the way try to adjust his status and the immigration judge is taking all this in seeing how he's shifting every every few minutes as his claim is not developing the way he wanted it and reason they concluded that there is not a ring of truth in his testimony and therefore the adverse credibility determination is supported by substantial evidence and we thank you and i would submit that this is a serious case and light of the actions taken by the chinese government that is similar to a corruption type case as the background evidence shows and we some cited to that background evidence of pages fifty five to fifty nine of the brief he does face a particular allies risk of torture this isn't a general risk of torture in this case and that's based on not just the enter paul notice and the arrest warrant but all of the other things they've gone to the links to harm individuals that have been associated with them such as x y if they've contacted someone in the united states and i believe that substantial evidence does not support the board's decision on denying relief under the convention against torture just briefly with to respond to the issues with respect to credibility the petitioner did some that he thought that the business was legitimate at the start and he was working with the government but be it because the law change or the issue with with mirrors do the chinese government started coming after him we would submit as we stated in our brief this is not an inconsistency when he was discussing the reasons why he believes the chinese government was after him he wasn't there he was basing it on information he was learning from others and his mother and ex wife told and that there were issues with respect to religion and they were looking into the business he was just addressing what the reasons why he thought and i would submit that as we stated on our brief that those aren't shifting explanations of the reasons why he believed that they were after him and there could be multiple reasons and he wasn't one hundred percent positive why but we would submit as stated in