Abdo*, a young Yemeni citizen, entered Crete via Libya in July 2025, seeking protection in Greece due to the ongoing war in his country of origin for more than a decade. He was immediately transferred to and detained in Amygdaleza Pre-Removal Detention Center (PRDC) after the Hellenic Police issued a deportation order against him. Although he expressed his will to apply for international protection a few days after his arrival, he was deprived of this right due to the unlawfull three-month suspension of asylum applications under Art. 79 of Law 5218/2025.

In September, a major fight broke out in Amygdaleza PRDC among detainees of various nationalities. The Police indiscriminately arrested all detainees in the section, confiscated their mobile phones, denied them the right to communicate with anyone, and brought them before the court the next day. Abdo was unable to prove his innocence and non-involvement in the fight, as his mobile phone had been taken and he had no access to legal counsel. The court found him complicit in criminal damage and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment in a flagrante delicto procedure. Abdo filed an appeal on the same day, which automatically suspended the execution of his sentence.

Abdo finally managed to submit his asylum application while still detained, in mid-October, when the three-month suspension expired. Unlike other Yemeni detainees, the Police refused to lift his detention, claiming he constituted a threat to public order due to the above conviction. His asylum interview took place a few days later, and the Asylum Office informed the Police that Abdo had a well-founded claim. Nevertheless, the Police prolonged his detention pending the decision on his asylum application.

Abdo remained in detention until early February 2026, when he sought legal support from Equal Rights Beyond Borders. By that time, the Asylum Office had still not issued a decision, despite being obliged to do so within 20 days of registering his application. The Asylum Office justified this unacceptable delay by citing the need to investigate the applicant’s criminal record, even though a report on his penal status had been received from the Police and included in his file since October.

Equal Rights’ lawyer filed objections to Abdo’s detention, arguing that there had been an unjustified delay in issuing the asylum decision, especially given that the competent Asylum Office had already officially assessed that Abdo had a well-founded fear of persecution in Yemen. Moreover, his conviction for a misdemeanor - while his appeal was still pending - was insufficient grounds for the Police to classify him as a threat to public order. The Court accepted our argumentation and ruled the detention unlawful for the above reasons,. It further ordered his accommodation in a facility for asylum seekers. A few weeks after his release, in March 2026, Abdo was notified that he had been granted refugee status.

Abdo fled an ongoing war, yet he spent more than 200 days in detention in Greece, in dire conditions, without proper food or clothing, despite being a prima facie refugee. He was denied access to asylum for almost three months and faced arbitrary arrest and a fast-track criminal trial without basic procedural safeguards. He was also a victim of a practice still widely applied by the Hellenic Police: the instrumentalization of criminal charges - even for minor offences or pending cases - to justify the administrative detention of foreign nationals.

Following Equal Rights’ legal actions, Abdo is now able to plan his future in Greece and is preparing for his Appeal Court hearing, scheduled for June, where he hopes to prove his innocence.

Their reasoning was based on the “need to investigate the applicant’s criminal record”, an absurd claim as such, since his penal status was already known to them since October.