Katina Baird, the Larnaca restaurateur (owner of Katina’s Tasty Food Caribbean restaurant) who found herself in Menoyia migrant detention centre, awaiting deportation, was released on Friday, following a wave of support from the public and organisations demanding she be set free.

Baird’s laywer, Elias Christou, said her release was “a popular demand of the society of Larnaca and Cyprus and it became reality”.

Christou thanked the deputy migration minister, Larnaca mayor, House president, political party leaders and MPs, and especially the press and journalists who “gave the true dimension of the issue and mobilised public opinion”.

He also thanked all the people who posted the story on their social media accounts.

Shortly after her release, 32-year-old Katina Baird said of Oroklini and her neighbours “this is my home, this is my family” and thanked everyone for their help and support.

Deputy Migration Minister Nicholas Ioannides told philenews that the humanitarian factors were taken into account and that procedures laid out in the law would be followed to make her residency legal “if she so wishes”.

Her detention was completely illegal, according to Baird’s lawyer Elias Christou – above all because she has a court case pending and can’t be deported till she’s had an opportunity to defend herself.

For a third-country national to remain in Cyprus as a family member of an EU citizen, she has to stay married for three years. After that, the right of residence remains unaffected, even if the marriage breaks down.

This was the situation with Baird, who was born in Guyana but was married (pre-Brexit) to a British man.

Unfortunately (even though the couple were together for longer), the actual marriage lasted only two years and 11 months. However, the law makes a clear exception to the three-year rule in cases of domestic violence.

Baird had filed a police complaint alleging violence before the couple separated. Soon after, she opened her restaurant, which became very popular with locals.

Even though the application was still pending and despite the special circumstances of being a business owner and a taxpayer, having been married to an EU citizen, having lived in Cyprus for years, being a respected member of the community, and so on – Baird was arrested by the police, locked up in Menoyia and also treated, she says, in a “dehumanising” way.

Before ending up in the detention centre, she was transported from Larnaca to Oroklini police station, then spent the night in an “extremely confined” holding cell in Paphos.