Opinion ID: 3030706
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Shooting of Khalil in the Anus and His

Text: Subsequent Murder. The IJ found that Karouni failed to provide evidence to corroborate that Hizballah militants were responsible for shooting his cousin, Khalil, in the anus and later killing him. Specifically, the IJ asked Karouni if he had proof that Hizballah militants were responsible or that Khalil was shot and killed because he was gay. Karouni explained that there were no newspaper accounts or police reports15 attributing Khalil’s shooting and murder to the Hizballah or to Khalil’s homosexuality. Karouni also explained that in Lebanon’s cultural, political, and legal climates, Khalil’s shootings were not likely to be publicly attributed to Khalil’s homosexuality or to the Hizballah. [7] The IJ’s faulting of Karouni for his failure to provide 15 With respect to Khalil’s first shooting, Karouni specifically explained in his asylum application that “[t]he police investigated but dropped the case because he was gay.” KAROUNI v. GONZALES 2857 corroborative evidence is not a substitute for substantial evidence. “Because asylum cases are inherently difficult to prove, an applicant may establish his case through his own testimony alone.” Garrovillas v. INS, 156 F.3d 1010, 1016-17 (9th Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(a) (“The testimony of the applicant, if credible, may be sufficient to sustain the burden of proof without corroboration.”). Once an applicant’s testimony is deemed credible — as Karouni’s testimony was deemed here — no further corroboration is required to establish the facts to which the applicant testified. See Kaur v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 876, 890 (9th Cir. 2004). Moreover, Karouni’s testimony that Khalil was likely shot in the anus and later killed by the Hizballah because he was gay finds support in the record. As discussed earlier, Karouni submitted to the IJ a substantial amount of evidence establishing (1) that the Hizballah has a military presence throughout Karouni’s home region in the South of Lebanon; (2) that the Hizballah applies Islamic law in that region; (3) that homosexuality is punishable by death under Islamic law; and (4) that the Hizballah and Lebanese state officials have arrested, beaten, and in some cases killed known or suspected homosexuals. See supra Part I. Karouni also submitted evidence suggesting that Muslim militia-men in Lebanon regularly use their firearms to sexually assault and torment suspected homosexuals. In particular, Karouni submitted a BIA opinion from a similar immigration case involving a Lebanese homosexual, in which Muslim militia-men repeatedly forced the barrel of a rifle into the homosexual asylum-seeker’s anus. “We have repeatedly held that asylum applicants [do not] bear . . . the unreasonable burden of establishing the exact motives of their persecutors . . . .” Ali v. Ashcroft, 394 F.3d 780, 785 (9th Cir. 2005). For this reason, a persecutor’s identity and/or motivation may be established by direct or circumstantial evidence. See INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992). Circumstantial evidence may include, inter alia, 2858 KAROUNI v. GONZALES “[o]bvious signs” connecting persecutory acts to the alleged persecutors and suggesting the alleged persecutors’ motives. See Deloso v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 858, 865 (9th Cir. 2005). [8] In this case, we agree with Karouni that shooting Khalil in the anus is essentially res ipsa loquitor evidence, see Petitioner’s Opening Brief, available at 2003 WL 22724486, at , or an “[o]bvious sign[ ],” see id., that Khalil was shot because he was a homosexual. We can conceive of no explanation why members of a society hostile to homosexuality would shoot Khalil in the anus other than that the perpetrators primitively and abhorrently believed that they were punishing Khalil for his perceived sins by mutilating, as Karouni characterized it, “the locus of Khalil’s homosexual sin.” Karouni’s arguments and testimony, when read with the other evidence in the record, support his conclusion that Khalil was likely shot in the anus and later killed by the Hizballah because he was gay. Cf. Navas, 217 F.3d at 657 (“In some cases, the factual circumstances alone may provide sufficient reason to conclude that acts of persecution were committed on account of . . . [a] protected ground[ ]. Indeed, this court has held persecution to be on account of [a protected ground] where there appears to be no other logical reason for the persecution at issue.” (internal citation omitted)); Ratnam v. INS, 154 F.3d 990, 995 (9th Cir. 1998) (“[I]f there is no evidence of a legitimate . . . purpose for a government’s harassment of a person . . . there arises a presumption that the motive for the harassment is [on account of a protected ground].” (internal citation omitted)).