7 | PROTECTING STATELESS PERSONS FROM ARBITRARY DETENTION IN BULGARIA We also studied in detail the legal files of two former stateless detainees, whose cases reached the European courts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg. These are the cases of Mr. Kadzoev and Mr. Auad: Mr. Kadzoev entered Bulgaria irregularly in order to seek asylum in October 2006. In Russia he had been detained and tortured by the authorities (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Amnesty International issued statements validating the credibility of Mr. Kadzoev’s testimony of torture and inhuman treatment in Russia). Although he sought asylum, a removal order and a detention order were imposed on Mr. Kadzoev. His asylum application was registered only after seven months, when Mr. Kadzoev attempted to commit suicide, and it was rejected as ‘manifestly unfounded’. In the course of administrative proceedings to identify Mr. Kadzoev‘s nationality, two different documents were found: a birth certificate that determined that Mr. Kadzoev was born in Moscow of a Chechen father and a Georgian mother, and a temporary identity card of the Chechen Republic, which stated that Mr. Kadzoev’s place of birth was Grozny. Contrary to the view of the Bulgarian authorities, the Russian authorities declared that the temporary identity card was issued by an agent unknown to the Russian Federation, consequently it could not be regarded as evidence of Mr. Kadzoev’s citizenship. Mr. Kadzoev spent over three years in immigration detention in Bulgaria (from 21 October 2006 to 3 December 2009), after which he was released as an undocumented migrant. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) determined that, according to European Union (EU) law, the Bulgarian authorities could not continue holding Mr. Kadzoev in detention over the maximum time limit of eighteen months permissible under the European Returns Directive.2 Mr. Auad was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in 1989. As a Palestinian refugee, he is not a citizen of Lebanon or any other country. In October 2009 Mr. Auad was granted subsidiary international protection (‘Humanitarian status’) by Bulgaria. One month later, the State Agency for National Security (SANS) issued two orders for the detention and expulsion of Mr. Auad on national security grounds. He was held in immigration detention for eighteen months from November 2009 to May 2011 and then he was released without any identity documents and means of support. In October 2011 the European Court of Human rights (ECtHR) ruled that Mr. Auad’s detention pending deportation and the lack of access to effective remedies was in violation of Article 5, paragraph 1 (right to liberty and security) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).3 Furthermore, it stated that if Mr. Auad’s expulsion was to be carried out, it would violate Article 3 of the Convention (prohibition of torture) and the non-refoulement principle. The Court found that the Bulgarian authorities had failed to carry out the return proceedings with due diligence: the only action proven to be taken was writing three times to the Lebanese embassy. Furthermore, since it is not required by the national law, the expulsion order did not specify the country of destination. The Court saw this as problematic with regard to the requirement of legal certainty inherent in all Convention provisions.4