An Iranian asylum seeker locked up in two Melbourne hotels for more than a year has described the experience as "torture" and is challenging the federal government's decision to detain him.
Mostafa Azimitabar spent 15 months detained in the Mantra Hotel in Preston and the Park Hotel in Carlton before being released on a bridging visa in January last year.
He has launched legal action in the Federal Court seeking unspecified damages for the trauma caused by his detention.
Mr Azimitabar alleged he was locked in a room for 23 hours a day without being able to open the window and subjected to more than 400 pat-down body searches.
"People look at the place as a hotel, but inside the hotel there was no tranquillity," Mr Azimitabar said outside the court.
Mr Azimitabar, a Kurdish Iranian, spent about nine years in immigration detention after arriving by boat.
He was first taken to an immigration detention centre on Christmas Island and later spent time on Manus Island before being transferred to the Australian mainland in November 2019.
His transfer was made possible by an amendment to the Migration Act that became known as the "Medevac Bill".
It required the federal government to transfer detainees on Manus Island to Australia if they required medical treatment.
Mr Azimitabar's lawyer Michael Bradley said the case hinges on whether the immigration minister was authorised to detain people in hotels, which are referred to by the immigration department as Alternative Places of Detention (APODs).
"Our argument is that the power [to detain people in APODs] doesn't exist," Mr Bradley said.
"There is nothing in the Migration Act that gives the minister this power, so the APODS have no legal status at all."
Mr Bradley said it was too early to say exactly how much compensation Mr Azimitabar will seek.
"A lot of his trauma was very deeply compounded by the 15 months that he spent in the APODs so we would be anticipating a fairly significant damages verdict if we are successful," he said.
Human rights organisation Amnesty International is supporting Mr Azimitabar's case.
Amnesty International's Tim O'Connor said others detained at the hotels would be watching the case closely and may also launch legal action.
Lawyers for the Commonwealth told the Federal Court it will argue the Migration Act does give the minister the power to create APODs and that the minister acted lawfully by delegating that authority to the department officials who set up the Mantra and Park hotels.
The case before Justice Bernard Murphy is set down for two days.
