The tribunal, in a newly published decision, said once the couple started cohabiting, the man became controlling and was violent if the woman disobeyed him.
Tribunal member Bruce Burson said the man converted to Judaism from Rastafarianism and embraced increasingly extreme religious views and far-right politics.
"In the course of threatening the daughter, the ex-partner referenced his connections to a paramilitary group who, he intimated, would harm her if she tried to leave him."
The daughter left anyway, moving in with her mother.
Later, at a meeting about a Bogotá apartment the couple had owned, the ex-partner threatened to harm both women.
He then made abusive phone calls to the mother for a year, and pestered the daughter on Facebook.
After the women sought help in 2012, police banned the man from approaching the younger woman but he persisted, using different Facebook accounts.
He visited her workplace, threatening both women by saying "their time would come".
He repeated the threat in 2016.
Soon after, both women came to New Zealand but the man kept pestering the former girlfriend.
When the women first sought refugee status, the tribunal in 2018 accepted the women feared harm, but found no real chance existed of the man harming either of them.
The women appealed against deportation and sought refugee status.
RESURGENT STALKER
The tribunal heard the ex-partner resurfaced, approaching the daughter on Facebook in 2019.
Burson said medical records showed the women had post-traumatic stress disorder.
The daughter started dating a New Zealander and got engaged.
The abusive man got married to a different woman, but kept stalking his ex.
In one Facebook message, he said: "I made a quick look to stalk you and well ... when you come around here let's go out."
The woman replied: "Instead of keep following me and harassing me you should dedicate more to your wife and see if you could treat her better than the way you treated me."
"I hope she is not naive as I was because I would feel very sorry for her."
The mother believed her daughter's choice of non-Colombian marriage partner would heighten risks.
The Colombian man once said he would "rather see her dead" than with someone else.
"The daughter does not know what the ex-partner will do if he finds out that she is married," Burson said. "She does not wish to live her life in constant fear."
The mother said the Colombian man would exact "revenge" with impunity, given high rates of misogynistic violence in the South American country.
Burson said the younger woman's father voiced concerns about the ex-boyfriend.
"He recalls him being very unstable, changing religions seemingly very quickly."
The father said nowhere in Colombia was safe for the two women.
In October 2020, the women's lawyer said the man would see his former partner's marriage as a public shaming and a rejection not only of him but of Colombian men.
The women said Colombia also had problems with armed conflict and rampant criminal gangs.
The tribunal accepted the younger woman felt threatened by the ex-partner, and found both women were credible witnesses.
Burson said a return to Colombia could trigger more serious PTSD, and a real chance existed of the ex-partner harming the younger woman.
He said online stalking forced the younger woman into self-censorship on social media, curtailing her freedom of expression.
Burson said Colombia wouldn't be able to protect the daughter from harm.
OBJECT OF OBSESSION
But he said risks to the mother were only "speculative" and she was not the man's object of obsession.
"The Tribunal also accepts that the mother will experience some intensification of her psychological symptoms," Burson added.
But he said no evidence showed this would amount to cruel treatment.
The daughter was recognised as a refugee, and there was no prospect of her deportation.
Burson said since the mother was not granted refugee status, that created humanitarian concerns about separation of mother and daughter.
But the tribunal said it was for Immigration New Zealand to decide whether the mother would be granted another visa.
Immigration NZ and a lawyer for the two women were approached for comment.
Malcolm Pacific Immigration chief executive David Cooper said the case showed New Zealand had a high threshold for granting refugee status.
He said the mother could potentially ask for a visa.
"If Immigration New Zealand gave her a visa, say, for one day, and it expired the next day, then she can appeal against deportation.
"This time, she'd be able to argue she'd be going back to Colombia and she'd be on her own."
Cooper said the mother could still argue a potential risk existed.
"That is an option. I don't know whether or not the lawyer who was representing this couple has pursued that."
He said the case showed the tribunal effectively viewed the women as separate family units.
"If the daughter was a 10-year-old, then she'd be part of mum's family unit."
If a visa was refused, the mother had limited options.
Cooper said the daughter was likely to get residency one day, so in theory could bring her mum over, but Covid-19 had put a stop to the Parent Resident Visa.
"Then she is facing deportation and her options are either leave, try appealing to the Minister of Immigration - throw yourself at his feet - or keep your head down and hope that nobody finds you."
