Athens, 8 October 2026. The Greek Government has acknowledged that it unlawfully detained a vulnerable Afghan asylum seeker for more than a year at the Pre-Removal Detention Centre (PRDC) of Moria camp on Lesvos. In O.M. v. Greece (application no. 14354/21), the Government acknowledged violations of Article 5 § 1 (protection against arbitrary or unlawful detention), § 2 (right to be promptly informed of the reasons for detention), and § 4 (right to have the lawfulness of detention reviewed promptly by a court) of the European Convention on Human Rights and agreed to pay the applicant €4,900. O.M., represented by HIAS Greece, accepted the declaration, and the European Court of Human Rights struck the relevant complaints out of its list.
O.M. arrived on Lesvos in August 2019 and applied for international protection shortly afterwards. He was recognized as vulnerable due to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and his claim was referred to the regular procedure, which required him to travel to the mainland for examination.
However, on 26 January 2020, he was detained at the Moria PRDC on public-order/national security grounds, following an allegation that he had stolen a bicycle. Although O.M. explained that he had bought the bicycle from another person, and the criminal proceedings were discontinued after the alleged victim declined to pursue the case against him, his detention continued and was repeatedly extended on the same grounds until his release on 10 February 2021.
The detention orders were not promptly communicated to O.M. in his language and were drafted in technical terms. They did not set out the grounds for detention or the applicable maximum period, referring instead to article numbers without explaining why the provisions applied to his case. They also did not identify his criminal case or reflect developments in the criminal proceedings.
The ex officio judicial reviews accompanying the extensions repeated, in essentially identical terms, that O.M. remained a risk to public order/national security and that his detention was lawful. They did not address that the theft allegation had never resulted in criminal charges, or whether it showed that O.M. posed a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to public order or national security. Nor did they consider his recognized vulnerability, the exceptional nature of asylum detention, or whether less restrictive alternatives were available.
The reviews also did not address the absence of any realistic prospect of removal, particularly after readmissions to Türkiye were suspended in March 2020, or the fact that his asylum application remained pending. The maximum period of detention in his case was six months, yet O.M. remained deprived of his liberty far beyond that period. His detention also prevented him from travelling to the mainland to resume the examination of his asylum claim.
The situation was further complicated by the fire at Moria camp in September 2020. Although O.M. was evacuated from the PRDC, he continued to be treated as a detainee. His challenge to his detention before the courts was rejected because the challenged detention decision had expired, without taking into account that he was still considered a detainee or the arguments he had raised.
His prolonged detention had serious consequences for his well-being. O.M. reported a suicide attempt on 26 January 2020, as a result of the prolonged uncertainty surrounding his detention and asylum proceedings.
HIAS Greece welcomes the Greek Government’s acknowledgement of these violations and its commitment to provide redress, while stressing the importance of ensuring that similar violations do not occur again.
For further information:
Elli Kriona Saranti
Elli.kriona@hias.org
