An Algerian immigrant has been awarded €12,000 in compensation after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Maltese system failed to protect him from an unnecessarily long and arbitrary detention period.

The court found that Khaled Louled Massoud had been deprived of his right to liberty and security when he was detained for about 18 months. The ECHR noted that government policy had "no legal force". The fact that the Immigration Act did not stipulate a minimum time of detention meant that Mr Massoud did not have a legal tool with which to contest his detention.

"The Maltese legal system... failed to protect the applicant from arbitrary detention and his prolonged detention cannot be considered to have been 'lawful' (in terms of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights)," the court ruled unanimously.

Mr Massoud filed a case in the Strasbourg court against the Maltese government represented by Attorney General Silvio Camilleri.

He had arrived in Malta illegally on June 24, 2006, aboard a boat from Libya. Two days later he was arraigned and charged with helping people enter Malta illegally and was remanded in custody. On October 25 of that year he was found guilty and jailed for 18 months.

While in prison, on April 17, 2007, he made a formal application for asylum. When he was released from jail, on June 27 that year, he was placed at the Safi detention centre pending the determination of his asylum claim.

According to detention policy, he was to be released from Safi in December 2008.

His asylum application was rejected but he remained in detention, awaiting a removal order, until January 2009 when his removal order was lifted.

The Maltese government had lifted the order since Mr Massoud did not have official documentation and Algerian authorities refused to issue the necessary documentation.

"The court considers that, while it is true that the Maltese authorities could not compel the issuing of such a document, there is no indication in the government's observations that they pursued the matter vigorously or endeavoured entering into negotiations with the Algerian authorities with a view to expediting its delivery...

"Moreover, the court finds it hard to conceive that in a small island like Malta, where escape by sea without endangering one's life is unlikely and fleeing by air is subject to strict control, the authorities could not have had at their disposal measures other than the applicant's protracted detention to secure an eventual removal in the absence of any immediate prospect of his expulsion," the court ruled.

The court also pointed out that Mr Massoud remained in Malta till today.

However, Mr Massoud's lawyer Michael Camilleri noted that his client had been arrested again last week so he could be deported.

He filed an application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction calling on the Maltese courts to stop his deportation pending the ECHR judgment. The court dismissed the application and Mr Massoud is waiting to be sent back to Algeria.

Meanwhile, the ECHR gave the Maltese government three months to pay Mr Massoud the €12,000 owed to him in compensation.