Dutch Court Blocks Deportation to Morocco, Awards Man €1,280

Every evening, he allegedly called a Moroccan number. In prison, he reportedly spoke only Darija and mixed exclusively with Moroccan inmates. For the Dutch Ministry of Asylum and Migration, these three points justified considering his deportation to Morocco. But at a hearing before the court in The Hague on 13 October, the authorities were unable to produce documents verifying their claims. Two days later, the court overturned their decision.

On Bladi.net : Dutch Court Upholds Detention as Man’s Claimed Nationality Shifts from Moroccan to Algerian

The man, whose nationality remains undetermined, says he is Algerian. The Netherlands had in fact initially planned to deport him to Algeria, in a decision issued on 9 July 2021. But efforts to contact Algiers never succeeded in confirming his identity.

The authorities then explored another possibility. On 24 June 2026, the ministry added Morocco as a possible destination, citing information provided by the Dutch agency responsible for returns and departures. The man challenged the decision on 18 July. He says he has no one in Morocco and accuses the authorities of providing no concrete evidence of his supposed ties to the kingdom.

At the hearing in Groningen on 13 October, the ministry finally presented its arguments. The information had not come from the returns agency, as stated in the decision, but from an official in the prison administration. The official had reportedly flagged the man’s daily phone calls to Morocco, his exclusive use of Moroccan Arabic and the people he associated with in prison.

Information read out at the hearing, but no evidence in the case file

However, this information appears nowhere in the documents submitted to the judges. The ministry’s representative simply read out the contents of an internal message during the hearing. Neither the court nor the man’s lawyer could verify the source or reliability of the information.

In its 15 October 2026 ruling, the court in The Hague, sitting in Groningen, found that the authorities had not sufficiently demonstrated that there was concrete evidence to support the view that the man came from Morocco and could be sent there. The order of 24 June was overturned.

The case has a second aspect. The man had spent more than three years in criminal detention, from 25 June 2023 to 6 October 2026. On leaving prison, he was immediately placed in administrative detention while arrangements were made for his deportation. The ministry justified the measure in part on the grounds that he might abscond. The man was also subject to a ten-year entry ban imposed in 2021.

The judges acknowledged that several of the grounds cited by the authorities to justify his detention were valid. But his removal still had to be achievable within a reasonable time. On 27 October 2025, however, the Algerian authorities had said they could not find his fingerprints in their records and could not confirm his nationality. The previous request for a travel document had been closed, with no new procedure actually initiated.

On Bladi.net : The Netherlands Detains Him for 8 Days Before His Return to Morocco: Judge Releases Him and Awards Him €1,000

The court therefore found that his detention had been unlawful from the first day, as there was no realistic prospect of deporting him to Algeria. It ordered his release on 15 October and ordered the Dutch state to pay him 1,280 euros: 320 euros for two days in a police cell and 960 euros for eight days in an immigration detention centre. The ministry must also cover 2,802 euros in legal costs.

The two-part ruling ends his detention and overturns the addition of Morocco as a destination country. However, the 2021 order requiring him to return to Algeria remains in force. As for his nationality, the ruling still does not establish whether he is Algerian or Moroccan.