Ali entered South Africa in 2008, fleeing claimed persecution by Al-Shabaab, and was granted refugee status on 7 October that year. He later sought indefinite refugee status (a step toward permanent residence). In 2017 he engaged someone presenting as an immigration agent who promised to expedite the process; Ali obtained a certificate and applied for permanent residence on 15 December 2017. The Department of Home Affairs discovered the certificate was fraudulent and rejected the application on 9 July 2018. Proceedings to withdraw his refugee status followed, with formal notice in March 2024.
During a November 2024 interview it emerged that Ali had travelled to Hargeisa on 2 March 2017 and returned to South Africa on 15 May 2017. Authorities treated this as voluntary re-availment of Somalia’s protection under the Refugees Act (and related regulations on travel document conditions). On 16 January 2026 the Standing Committee for Refugee Affairs withdrew his status on both the fraud and re-availment grounds.
Ali challenged the decision in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg. He said the trip was to visit his terminally ill father (who died and was buried around 13 May 2017), argued it was not “voluntary” re-availment in the legal sense, claimed Hargeisa was in a “no-man’s land”/Somaliland, and invoked non-refoulement. His papers focused mainly on the travel ground.
In a judgment delivered around late October 2026, Judge Mokate Victor Noko dismissed the application. Key findings included:
- Ali failed to properly challenge the independent fraudulent-certificate ground in his founding papers, which was fatal.
- The three-month stay was not an “occasional” or purely humanitarian visit. He first raised the sick-father explanation only in February 2026 court papers (omitting it from May 2025 representations to the authorities); the court viewed this as an afterthought. He had travelled voluntarily, knew protection was available in Hargeisa, and accessed it.
- South Africa does not recognise Somaliland as independent; Hargeisa is part of Somalia and considered safe enough that return would not breach non-refoulement.
- The withdrawal decision was rational and showed no bias.
