A Chechen asylum seeker who had been held without trial in Sofia's Bousmantsi detention centre since October 2006 looks set for imminent release after a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling on November 30 that his incarceration violated the terms of the EC Return Directive.

This directive stipulates that no period of detention for illegal immigrants or asylum seekers - if this is the only "transgression" - should exceed 18 months.

Said Kadzoev, 30, claimed to have been tortured for seven months by special security services in Russia. He made his asylum application in Bulgaria in November 2006, yet it seems that he was only interviewed on May 31 2007.

The Legal Clinic for Refugees and Immigrants had been providing free legal aid to Kadzoev since January 2007 and had publicised what it claimed were human rights violations in his case, including alleged lengthy periods of solitary confinement at Bousmantsi in a "punishment" isolation cell.

Valeria Ilareva, head lawyer at the Legal Clinic for Refugees and Immigrants, had long campaigned for Kadzoev's release. "People who cross borders illegally to seek asylum are not criminals – even according to the Bulgarian Penal Code – so his (Kadzoev's) treatment seems all the more extraordinary," Ilareva said in 2007.

According to Ilareva, the national court that is deciding Said's case now has to release him on the basis that he has been detained for more than 18 months. That decision is due imminently.

"The good news here is not just Kadzoev's release, but the interpretation of the EC Return Directive over immigration detention that is a victory for all immigrants in Europe," Ilareva told The Sofia Echo when she heard of the ECJ's ruling.