Egyptian migrant who fled to the UK after he ran over policeman wins appeal hearing

The Home Office initially rejected MM’s asylum claim (Image: Getty)

An Egyptian man who fled to the UK after hitting a police officer in Egypt in 2021 has won an appeal against a rejected asylum claim. The claimant, named in court as MM, left Egypt after the policeman he had run over demanded financial compensation that he could not afford. When he arrived in the UK, MM claimed asylum and had his human rights application rejected.

However, he has now won an appeal against this decision and his case will now be heard by another court after an immigration judge decided there had been an error in the application process. After hitting the policeman, the man said he could not afford to pay compensation. After travelling through Libya, Italy, and France, MM arrived in the UK and applied for asylum.

The judge said there has been an error in the treatment of the man's evidence (Image: Getty)

During an interview in the UK, he said the person he had hit was a police officer and his family had told him that the police had been to their home looking for him.

He claimed the police officer had said he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. MM said that while he had been charged with collecting money for the Muslim Brotherhood, he had never been politically active.

Egyptian authorities have accused MM of links to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian government has declared a terrorist organisation. In August 2022, an Egyptian court found him guilty, alongside others, of crimes connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist organisation founded in Egypt in 1928 by Islamic scholar, Imam, and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna. It is considered the oldest political Islamist group in the Arab world. Some countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Syria, and Russia, have declared the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. In April 2025, Jordan also officially outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, declaring it an illegal organisation.

MM's asylum claim was dismissed on credibility grounds but he appealed. He claimed that that the judge failed to engage with some of the documents he had provided.

Judge Graves noted that documents MM had submitted were not properly considered, and highlighted the difficulties he faced as a non-English-speaking litigant representing himself. The case will be reheard in the first-tier tribunal at a later date.

Judge Graves said: "I am therefore unable to find any basis in the evidence before the judge, to support the finding that MM failed to provide these documents at the earliest stage.

"Or that the timing of the production of them prevented the Home Office from having time to undertake proper scrutiny, given they were submitted before the decision, the review and the hearing before the judge.

"Accordingly, I find there is an error in the treatment of this evidence, which gave rise to a core adverse credibility point with regard to [MM's] credibility overall, but also with regard to what weight could be placed on the documents themselves. As a result, it is a material error.

"I am mindful too that [MM] is a litigant in person who does not speak English and who has struggled to engage with the appeal process.

"[MM] had provided photographic evidence as part of his claim of attendance at a Muslim Brotherhood demonstration in the UK in November 2022."