Opinion ID: 787211
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Administrative Record and the IJ's Decision

Text: 5 As will become clear, the IJ's credibility determination rested on his rejection of a fairly narrow slice of Berishaj's testimony. But we will discuss Berishaj's testimony in full, because his claims depend on aspects of it beyond the specific testimony on which the IJ based his adverse credibility determination. CAT claims and questions of changed country conditions are, for the most part, evaluated with reference to documentary evidence of contemporary country conditions; questions of corroboration are evaluated with reference to documentary evidence of past conditions. We will therefore address the documentary materials in the record with a focus on both past and contemporary events. To set the context for Berishaj's testimony, we set forth in the margin a capsule chronology of events in the Balkans from 1991 to 2001. 1 6
7 Berishaj is an ethnic Albanian who spent his youth in Montenegro, at the time part of Yugoslavia. 2 In the summer of 1991, he went to Kosovo, a neighboring province of Yugoslavia, to attend a university that conducted classes in his native Albanian tongue. (At that time, no university in Montenegro conducted classes in Albanian.) Serb forces had taken control in Kosovo in 1990, and had officially closed the university, but it continued to function underground, with classes held in private homes in Pristina, a major city in Kosovo. Berishaj's uncle, Palok, with whom Berishaj lived at the time, was one of the leading organizers of the illegal university, and he recruited Berishaj to find private homes in which to hold classes. Because of his activities, Palok was arrested in 1991, and again in 1994, when he was detained and beaten for several days. Berishaj was arrested in Pristina in the spring of 1992 for his assistance to the illegal university; he was beaten with a rifle butt and detained overnight. Not trusting the Serbian doctors at the hospital, Berishaj was treated by an Albanian doctor practicing illegally, and returned to Montenegro a few weeks later. 8 Shortly after returning to Montenegro, Berishaj was inducted into the army; he was sent to serve in Serbia, where he spent eleven months. He was easily recognizable as an ethnic Albanian, among a predominantly Serbian army-Berishaj is a well-known Albanian name; indeed, one Sali Berishaj was the former president of Albania. In the army, Berishaj served as a tank gunman following a three-month training period in which he learned to operate the tank gun from instructions in Serbian. In the tank crew of three or four, Berishaj was the lowest in rank, taking orders from Serbs in charge of the tank. Berishaj did not, in these eleven months, go to war in Bosnia. Berishaj attributed this to the Serbian officers not trusting Albanians enough to send them to war. Berishaj's duties mostly consisted of cleaning the tank gun and guarding the tank. He was beaten at the direction of Serbian officers for singing songs in Albanian, and he stopped speaking Albanian publicly, relying on the Serbian he learned while in the army. After completing eleven months of military service, Berishaj was discharged. He returned to Montenegro, then to Kosovo briefly to take university examinations, and then back to his parents' home in Montenegro. 9 In December 1993, four policemen — apparently military police-came to his parents' house at midnight and took him to fight in Bosnia. He served again as a gunman, and was ordered to destroy buildings, houses, and shoot at the army and at Muslim civilians in Bosnia. Berishaj explained that he had no choice but to shoot civilians: I would either, you know, shoot or [the Serbians] would kill me. Ethnic Albanians in the army were not trusted to shoot without being under Serbian control. For example, Berishaj explained, When we were in the tank, you know, using the gun, we would have somebody behind us [a Serbian] with an automatic gun.... Their function was that if somebody does not obey the order to shoot with a gun, they would kill him. Berishaj spent two months in the army this time, and escaped during the night in February 1994. He returned to his parents' home in Montenegro. 10 Fearing that he would be arrested and returned to the army, Berishaj crossed illegally from Montenegro into Albania, where he spent the next fourteen months in hiding at his cousin's home. He sought, but was unable to obtain, legal status in Albania; as a result, the Albanian authorities learned of him. His cousin, fearing the Albanian police, convinced Berishaj to return to Montenegro in April 1995. Upon returning to his parents' home in Montenegro, Berishaj learned that he was wanted by the police, and he went to reside with his sister, who lived in another village several miles from his parents' home. The five months with his sister were spent mostly indoors, as were the following months, which he spent with an uncle in yet another village. 11 Berishaj ultimately was located by the Montenegrin police in September 1996, and detained for two days. They asked him why he deserted from the army, and why he did not finish his studies at the official university (i.e., the Serbian-run university); it was clear that the police knew he had participated in the illegal university. Berishaj was released from custody apparently when an uncle fabricated a story about Berishaj needing to visit an ill family member and posted bail for him. Berishaj returned illegally to Albania, where he resided until February 1997, when he was smuggled to Belgrade, and from there to France, then Brazil, then the United States. 12 Since being in the United States, Berishaj has had limited contact with family members in Montenegro, fearing that his family would be coerced by the police into revealing his whereabouts. In January 2001, Berishaj spoke to his father for the first time since leaving Montenegro nearly four years before. His father explained, in Berishaj's words that once I left, the [Montenegrin] police came three times and checked the house inside out looking for me after I had escaped. At this time, they asked him `Where is he? Where can we find him?' And his response was he didn't know.... After I left, my father was telling me that many incidents they came and checked the house inside out three times, and at one point were also guarding the house overnight to see if I would come home. The police stopped searching for Berishaj when his father told them that Berishaj had left permanently. Berishaj also learned from his father that his brother was serving a five-year sentence for helping the Kosovar resistance during the war. Berishaj's sister, a naturalized American citizen, confirmed in an affidavit made in late 1997 that she had received similar accounts from their father, brother, and sister regarding police activity at their parents' home. 13

14 Much of the record addresses contemporary treatment of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo or elsewhere in Serbia; as this is not especially relevant to the situation in Montenegro, we will concentrate only on documentary evidence addressing Montenegro. We begin with the State Department's 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Serbia-Montenegro, issued in February 2000 (the 1999 Country Report); this is the latest country report available in the administrative record. While on the one hand the BIA may not `hide behind the State Department's letterhead' and place full and uncritical reliance on a country report, Ezeagwuna v. Ashcroft, 325 F.3d 396 (3d Cir.2003) (quoting Li Wu Lin v. INS, 238 F.3d 239, 246 (3d Cir.2001)), neither is it permissible for the IJ and BIA not to address the relevant country report in some detail. The first line of the 1999 Country Report reads: Serbia-Montenegro is dominated by Slobodan Milosevic, though it goes on to note that Milosevic's primary influence is over Serbia proper (and even there, not in Kosovo) and less over Montenegro. Nonetheless, given Milosevic's control over the Serbian army and federal police, the 1999 Country Report establishes that a prime force in the persecution (or worse) of ethnic Albanians was still in power at the time the administrative record was compiled. 3 15 On the other hand, the 1999 Country Report represents that Montenegro was making progress toward democracy, holding free and fair elections, and that 1999 saw even further escape from the federal control of Milosevic's regime. The 1999 Country Report further states that while the Montenegrin government generally respected its citizens' human rights, there were reports of extrajudicial killings by federal troops, forcible conscription, and violence and discrimination against minorities. Academic freedom is said to have been respected. In early 1999, the government began a program of devolving authority on local government officials in ethnic Albanian communities. The Yugoslav Parliament passed an amnesty for draft evaders and deserters in late 1995, and the Montenegrin Parliament passed a similar law in late 1999. According to documents in the record from Amnesty International, however, there is evidence that at least the latter law was not fully observed, as federal Yugoslav authorities and military police controlled the treatment of evaders and deserters. 16 The 1999 Country Report generally sounds of relative stability and democratic progress, but other parts of the record suggest that events were very fluid in 1999. For example, a series of news articles from the New York Times and reports from human rights organizations suggests that paramilitary groups associated with ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo had moved into Montenegro, perhaps at the behest of the Montenegrin police.
17 We turn now to materials in the record that could corroborate Berishaj's accounts from the early 1990s-specifically his time at the illegal university in Kosovo and his military service from 1992 to 1994. Two pieces are worthy of note. First, Berishaj's story about the operation of the illegal university in Kosovo, and police hostility to it, is perfectly corroborated by an Amnesty International Report from 1994, which is in the administrative record. This report describes the creation in 1990 and 1991 by ethnic Albanians of a parallel educational system using [pre-Serbian] curricula, with lessons... held in private homes. The report also describes several specific episodes of police violence against ethnic Albanians on account of this parallel educational system. 18 Second, and also in the administrative record before the IJ, a 1992 article from the Bronx-published English-language Albanian-American newspaper Illyria profiles a young ethnic Albanian, Adem Krasniqi, whose experience as a forced inductee into the Serbian army closely parallels Berishaj's. Krasniqi was one of many Albanian tankers (i.e., tank operators or gunmen). In an attack on Vukovar, Croatia, he was forced to move forward in the first wave; the story quotes Krasniqi as saying, Behind us were the Serbian irregulars uniformed as soldiers. Anyone trying to desert would be shot. We had two choices. Keep firing or get shot from people behind you. Krasniqi also describes indiscriminate shelling, and being forced to fire at innocent civilians; this is again consistent with Berishaj's account.
19 The IJ's decision (which, save for irrelevant introductory and concluding remarks, is recounted in full in the paragraphs that follow) begins with his adverse credibility determination: 20 The case at bar is afflicted by testimony that is incredible in nature. The Applicant's statements as to how he was recruited and placed in a position of combat by the Serbs while at the same time adducing to an attitude of total disdain and bias toward the Applicant is just incredulous to the Court. This fact is dramatized and magnified by the Respondent's testimony that although he was despised by the Serbs in the army he was placed in command of a tank. The testimony further developed how the Applicant learned to operate the tank by reading the instructions in it and how, albeit they were written in a language he did not understand, he was able to familiarize with the operation of the tank in just three months. As fantastic and ludicrous as that statement may appear, the Court was dazzled and astounded by the declaration that although he was in control of the tank he had a Serbian officer behind his back pointing a gun at him at all times! A better script could not have been thought about by kings of comedy like Peter Sellers or Mel Brooks. 21 This ridiculous testimony is not supported by one scintilla of evidence and in addition to be completely absurd it borders in an offensive and arrogant attitude toward the Court. The Applicant's demeanor, throughout the sessions of testimony, was characterized by an arrogant disposition in thinking that he deserves what he is asking for. 22 The IJ next turned to a brief discussion of the then-current conditions in Montenegro: 23 The amount of time this case has been pending has made the Respondent's claim even weaker. Historically, Montenegro was considered a satellite or puppet nation of strongman Slobodan Milosovic. Under Milosovic's regime the Respondent's position of opposition to service in the Serbian army may have had some validity. It was not until very recently that the Government of Montenegro has taken an independent position with regard to the treatment of ethnic Albanians in the region. Once the apparent defeat of the Milosovic administration, the Government of Montenegro has shown signs of self-determination. This change of events, contrary to the Applicant's position benefits the Respondent and makes his return to Montenegro reasonable. Montenegro has granted an amnesty to deserters and draft dodgers. Nothing in Respondent's arguments convinces this Court that his return to Montenegro would place him in any type of danger at the present time. In concluding as I do I have determined that the Applicant's possibility of any future persecution is nil. Respondent's attorney's arguments that the new administration of elected president Vojislaw Kostunica is a mirror image of his predecessor is not persuasive nor established. 24 The final substantive portion of the IJ's decision reiterates his adverse credibility determination: 25 The Court has stated its opinion earlier as to how skeptical the Court is about the Applicant's claim of past persecution. Testimony that has been plagued by fantastic anecdotes and uncorroborated information is very difficult to accept even as plausible. The Applicant's case is precisely affected by these characteristics and therefore makes it impossible for the Court to accord it any credence. 26 The BIA affirmed this decision without opinion.