A man who spent 11 months in prison "for a crime that does not exist" has filed an appeal for compensation after the first request was turned down by the Civil Court.

Aways Maani Khaure, a Somali, was found guilty of importing 20 kilograms of khat - a plant which is a popular amphetamine-like stimulant chewed across East Africa - and was jailed for six months last year. He was immediately released because he had been in prison five months more than what he was jailed for.

The Chief Justice then overturned the guilty verdict in an appeals court and acquitted him, stressing that the plant was not in the schedule of drugs considered illegal.

Following that judgment, a request for compensation was made in the Civil Court but it was thrown out. In the application filed yesterday, lawyer José Herrera said the Civil Court, which rejected the compensation claim, was incorrect when it said that the police were right to investigate the case, because the crime "does not exist", according to law.

The lawyer said it was unacceptable that, in this country, which was governed by the rule of law and where human rights were supposedly guaranteed, the fact that a person had spent so long in prison "for nothing" was ignored by the Civil Court.

He referred to protocol 7, article 3 of the Human Rights Convention which states that "compensation has to be given in case of a wrongful conviction". His client had indeed been wrongfully convicted and the police were over-zealous in their attempt to arraign him and this constituted a breach of his human rights, Dr Herrera said. His client was asking the courts to award compensation. No amount has been specified.