The Expert has worked as an expert witness on the Middle East, producing Country Expert Reports (CER) for the past 20 years.
The Expert has produced on average between 200-300 reports each year on the MENA region for British, European, and US courts.
The Expert’s areas of expertise include tribal issues, gender-based violence, security issues, extremist groups and militias, human rights law and violations, the situation for minorities, trafficking, and the availability of medical services. In addition to CERs,
The Expert also authenticates documents from the region, and conducts nationality and ethnicity reports in order to assess the likely origin of an individual within MENA.
The Expert is able to conduct nationality assessments in Arabic, Farsi, Sorani, and Bahdini/Kurmanji.
- Authentication of official and non-official documents
- Nationality assessments: to determine nationality, ethnicity disputes
- Country profiles, in particular the Arab states, Kurdistan, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan
- Specific ethno-religious groups and faiths
- Political, social and cultural groups
- Tribal issues: tribes, feuds, structures
- Extremist and violent groups, including religious groups
- Human rights: law, debates and violations
- Women issues: e.g. honour crimes
- Human trafficking
- Economy and finance: oil, private and government sectors
- Disadvantaged groups e.g. children, minorities, mentally ill, disabled, terminally ill
- Different sects and faiths of Islam: Shiia, Sunni, Wahabism and others
- Availability of medical services
- State structure, military and security services
- Drug dealing and trafficking
- Integration and multiculturalism
- Extremism and related issues
The Expert has produced thousands of reports since he began working as an expert witness in 2000. In the past four years alone,
The Expert has produced 1,136 Expert Reports on the Middle East. This includes:
706 Country Expert Reports
340 Document Authentication Reports
90 Nationality Reports.
The Expert’s reports have been commissioned for and cited in a number of immigration appeals, as well as family and criminal cases. Moreover, he has examined a large number of people from the Middle East whose nationality, native language, ethnicity, place of residence has been disputed, and have examined thousands of documents from the MENA region. In addition to a deep knowledge of the region’s administrative and bureaucratic cultures,
The Expert’s multilingual proficiencies enable him to understand, interpret and evaluate official documents in the Middle East. As a part of this work, Expert has produced his own methodology for document authentications and nationality examinations. The Expert has also provided written and oral evidence in court; among them are five Country Guidance Cases, two Turkish extradition orders and many other cases such as the most recent: SMO, KSP & IM (Article 15(c); identity documents) Iraq CG [2019] UKUT 400 (IAC) Country Guidance Case, Iraq- Security Situation in the Disputed Territories, report submitted on 22 March 2019, heard 24-25 June 2019. Dr Fatah has also reviewed and provided guidance on Home Office CPIN reports such as: Home Office Country police and information note: Christians and Christian converts, Iran, May 2019.