Cyprus Ordered to Pay Moroccan €5,000 After 13½ Months in Detention

Identified by the initials K.A., the asylum seeker was detained at Menoyia Centre from 10 January 2019 to 24 February 2020. The authorities cited national security to justify his detention, reports the Cypriot daily Philenews.

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It all began on the day he filed his asylum application. Having arrived on the island in December 2018 through its northern part, the Moroccan man presented himself to immigration services on 10 January the following year. His name then appeared in a database belonging to a partner foreign agency, which flagged him as a suspect in activities related to terrorism. The Cypriot authorities ordered his detention.

The asylum case initially moved quickly. In April 2019, the relevant service recognised him as a refugee, but that status was revoked on national security grounds. His application for protection was rejected. After an unsuccessful administrative appeal, he brought his case before the court responsible for international protection in October.

Meanwhile, he remained in detention. Yet the information used to justify his detention did not change: the administration relied on no new evidence and made no effort to gather any. No further interview was held after the April decision.

Prolonged detention without sufficient progress

It was this extension of his detention that the European judges sanctioned. They found that the authorities had not clearly defined the purpose of the detention: some cited national security, while others pointed to the examination of his asylum application.

The Court particularly noted the apparent lack of progress in the proceedings after the case was brought before the international protection court. Nothing showed that the case was unusually complex in a way that would justify such a long wait. It concluded that the right to liberty had been violated.

The Moroccan man had already been released on 24 February 2020. When the case was brought before it for a second time to challenge the length of his detention, the Cypriot Supreme Court had found that the state had not produced the evidence needed to justify keeping him at the centre.

The compensation now makes amends for this deprivation of liberty. In the Netherlands, another Moroccan man was awarded 1,000 euros after eight days in detention deemed illegal, because the measure had not been sufficiently justified.

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The ECHR nevertheless dismissed his other complaint, concerning confidential documents he had not been able to access. It found that he had been given sufficient information to challenge the allegations with his lawyer, while the court could consult the restricted documents.

K.A. now lives in the Larnaca district, at an address known to the authorities. His appeal against the rejection of his application for international protection was still pending at the time of the ruling.