AL-NASHIF v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT 21 A. Arguments of the parties 1. The applicants a) The disputed facts 100. The first applicant categorically denied that he had ever been involved in any unlawful activity and asserted that the allegations that he was linked to fundamentalist organisations preaching violence had been invented and were not supported by any reliable evidence (see paragraphs 49-65 above). Moreover, the Government had not claimed that other, confidential evidence, existed. 101. The applicants protested against the manner in which the Government's Agent had tried to “squeeze in” evidence by reading out at the oral hearing passages of documents she had not submitted to the Court. When those documents had later been submitted they had turned out to be declarations created for the purposes of the proceedings before the Court, full of vague generalisations and exaggerations lacking any credibility such as the statements about “hundreds of thousands of dollars..., once ... even twenty thousand” in the first applicant's home, coming in “USD 100 bills”. The National Security Service's Information Note, moreover, contained incorrect claims, such as those concerning the Tayba and Irshad foundations. The real facts demonstrated, in the applicants' view, that Mr Al-Nashif's expulsion had been intended to put an end to his lawful religious activities. b) Legal arguments 102. The applicants, referring to the Court's case-law, submitted that they were entitled to the protection of Article 8 of the Convention as they were a family, had at all relevant times permanently lived together and had been financially dependent on one another. The existence of true family life between the applicants could not be denied on the sole ground that Mr Al-Nashif had a second religious marriage. Such a situation was not uncommon in the cultural traditions of many peoples. 103. Having been forced in 1992 to leave Kuwait, Mrs Saleh and Mr Al-Nashif, a stateless person, had not been able to develop strong links with any country except Bulgaria, where they had established a home and family life. The applicants asked the Court to accept that if the only legal residence which a couple finds is a country with which neither of them has previously had any connection, the expulsion from that country of one of them is an interference with their rights under Article 8 of the Convention. They alleged that the deportation of Mr Al-Nashif was a serious interference with their family life. The family had never lived in Syria and lacked any real connection with that country. Moreover, after Mr Al-Nashif's