Osman, Abdullah

Abdullah Osman was convicted in August 2005 of failure to produce an immigration document and received a sentence of nine months’ imprisonment with a recommendation for deportation.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in January 2007.

Mr Osman had attended an asylum interview without a passport after travelling from Somalia.

It was Mr Osman’s case at trial that he had entered the UK using a non-genuine immigration document supplied by an immigration agent or facilitator to whom he had returned the document.

The judge provided the jury with agreed written directions as to the applicable law.

The judge also pointed out that the prosecution had satisfied the primary burden borne by it and he set out the defence upon which Mr Osman relied and the limitations of that defence.

During review the CCRC considered the Administrative Court’s judgment in the case of Thet v Department of Public Prosecutions (2006).

In light of Thet, the jury at Mr Osman’s trial should have been directed to acquit him if they were satisfied that, on the balance of probabilities, he either had a “reasonable excuse” for failing to produce a genuine immigration document or that he had travelled to the UK without ever having had in his possession a genuine immigration document.

The CCRC observed that in this regard, it was Mr Osman’s evidence that he had travelled using a non-genuine immigration document because he was unable to obtain a genuine passport as there existed no passport-issuing authority in Somalia.

The CCRC concluded that there was a real possibility the Court of Appeal would find that the jury might have acquitted Mr Osman had they been properly directed on the law.

The CCRC referred the conviction in June 2007.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in October 2007.