Australian Federal Police agents mistakenly handcuffed an Iraqi refugee on strict visa conditions due to bad intelligence, the agency has confirmed.

Nahi Al Sharify has been in community detention since January 2023 but his case has been included in the NZYQ cohort when about 150 detainees were freed in November, despite the 40-year-old having no criminal record in Australia or elsewhere.

The landmark High Court decision ruled that indefinite immigration detention was unlawful and unconstitutional, prompting the government to release dozens of detainees with strict monitoring conditions.

These include wearing ankle monitors, making daily phone calls to a designated Home Affairs Department hotline and an overnight curfew from 10pm to 6am.

The AFP says prior to the botched raid on February 29 it had received information from another law enforcement agency, which it didn’t specify, that the western Sydney man had breached one of his bail conditions by failing to report to his local police.

Mr Al Sharify said he was half-dressed when the armed officers arrived at his home around 4pm and rang the bell.

“As soon as I opened the door they arrested me,” he told AAP.

“They didn’t even let me speak one word, they handcuffed me instantly and I kept on asking why and they said you broke bail.”

Mr Al Sharify says he was handcuffed for about 15 minutes at the stairwell in front of his apartment, while he pleaded with the five armed officers to access his phone.

Once he opened his phone he showed them proof of a receipt, which AAP has seen, of him reporting to the Parramatta Police Command on February 26.

“After speaking to the man, the AFP made further inquiries about the alleged breach of bail and the AFP was informed a system error had occurred,” a spokesperson from the federal intelligence agency told AAP.

“The AFP released the man soon after that information was made available by another agency.”

“The AFP followed process and procedures in this matter”.

Mr Al Sharify’s permanent protection visa was cancelled in 2017 after he went to Iraq in search of a kidney transplant while suffering life-threatening organ failure.

On the back of the visa cancellation, Mr Al Sharify spent five years in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and was released last year, months before the High Court decision.

He originally sought asylum in 2011 after escaping by boat after the powerful Shia paramilitary group Al Mahdi Army executed his older brother and destroyed their trucking business in Basra.

Mr Al Sharify was on bail after he handed himself in on February 18 for allegedly failing to comply with visa conditions stipulating that he ring the Home Affairs hotline to let them know his whereabouts.

He did not understand he was meant to ring every day and therefore did not ring on weekends.

Magistrate Clare Farnan last month said his failure to ring on a daily basis did not present a danger to the community and granted him bail.

But Mr Al Sharify, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and high blood pressure, was shocked to find himself being arrested aggressively on a Thursday afternoon in Sydney.

“I felt the same way how militias in Iraq used to raid my home and violate me with their guns … and that’s what this raid triggered for me. It’s the same feeling – no difference,” he said.

“These militias targeted my family and executed my brother, and tortured me pulling my finger nails out and completely destroyed my life. I escaped to Australia because of them and now this is happening.”

The AFP’s admission of error was hollow, he said.

“Australia is supposedly a country where the rule of law is upheld, that’s why we left our countries, so why did his happen to me?”

“Why were my rights abused?”

—AAP