Inspite of a law amendment concerning this issue (the administrative judge was explicitly entitled to judge also the “lawfulness of detention”) in practice the administrative judges in Greece still apply a limited judicial control concerning detention, examining only the risk of absconding and the risk of national security. The law does not provide explicitly the judicial control of the detention conditions. Consequently the administrative judges deny examining allegations concerning inhuman and degrading conditions of detention. It should be noted that the Criminal Court of First Instance of Igoumenitsa in northwestern Greece has returned a decision (Nr 682/2012) in a prosecution brought against a number of immigrants awaiting expulsion who escaped a local detention centre. The judge found such conditions to be in clear violation of Article 3 of the ECHR (prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), while he also went on to state that both the conditions and the duration of detention of the accused, who were awaiting expulsion but had not been charged with any crime, was such as to also violate Articles 3, 8 (right to respect for private and family life), and 13 ECHR (right to an effective remedy). This, the judge said, constituted a state of necessity which precluded the accused‟s liability for the crime of escape. The conditions in which they were held put their life and health in extreme danger through no fault of their own; the only way for them to escape that danger was to escape from detention, an act for which they could not be held criminally liable. Moreover, the ex officio examination of the prolongation of detention, by a judge, has proved to be a typical procedure, within which the judge ratifies the detention decision and its prolongation issued by the police. This is a systematic practice for hundreds of cases dealt since May 2012 by the Greek Council for Refugees. The decision of the Administrative Court of Piraeus (Presidential Procedure, Decision No. 448/9-6-2011), providing for judicial review of detention every 3 months has not been followed by other Courts, and as long as there is no appeal procedure provided by law, the above mentioned decision was not appealed. There is no relevant national jurisprudence on detention since May 2012. The deliberate ill-treatment of detainees is also evident. Public statements have been made on the issue by the Greek Ombudsman, Amnesty International and Greek Council for Refugees. No measures have been adopted to prevent ill-treatment of asylum seekers and migrants in detention and in particularly, there is no independent complaints mechanism in place for such allegations. As mentioned in the report of Amnesty International “Police Violence in Greece: Not just „isolated incidents‟” of July 2012, “ […] many of the allegations received in recent years concerned torture and other forms of ill treatment of migrants and asylum-seekers, and in particular those held for immigration purposes” migrants and asylumseekers reported that their ill-treatment took place after they requested access to a doctor or access to a phone or protested about their length of detention and/or detention conditions. Allegations have also been received concerning cases of ill-treatment by coastguards against migrants and asylum-seekers apprehended and transported on coastguard boats, or migrants and asylum-seekers attempting to board irregularly a boat from Greece to Italy in the ports of Patras and Igoumenitsa. […]”. Yet, riots have taken place in detention centres in Komotini,