For 10 days in April, it looked like the seven-year ordeal of Helal "Spicy" Uddin was finally over.
Uddin, 30, who is from a small rural village in Bangladesh, washed up on the Australian territory of Christmas Island as an asylum seeker back in 2013.
Australian authorities transferred him to the notorious Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea, but by 2020 he was detained on the mainland in Bomana prison.
There were deaths, deportation, a marriage and a birth in between.
In April this year, Papua New Guinea's National Court ordered authorities to urgently release Uddin and grant him residency in the country for three years.
Freedom was sweet but it didn't last long. Some 10 days later, Uddin was back behind bars.
"My life should be a movie," he tells SBS News from his cell in Bomana prison.
Spicy's story
Uddin says he left Bangladesh after taking part in a political protest in his home village against the ruling left-wing Awami Party.
He says he believed he would have been jailed and possibly tortured for supporting its rival party.
He was given his nickname "Spicy" because he had worked as a chef in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka. He would go on to cook meals for his fellow detainees inside the Manus Island detention centre.
Uddin lived inside the Manus facility until 2016 when, in the face of mounting human rights concerns, the Australian government announced it would close the centre.
Uddin cooked for detainees during Papua New Guinea's Independence Day celebrations. Source: Supplied
Papua New Guinea's National Court found Uddin had been "unlawfully detained" in prison-like conditions on Manus for two years and six months.
Finding love
After he was released, Uddin met his wife Alice Michael on the island and they married in March 2017.
"I went free and I found my wife in a Chinese supermarket, and I fell in love with her and I married her," he says.
Less than three weeks after they married, Alice gave birth to their son, Mohamed Ali.
Things went smoothly for the rest of 2017 as Uddin settled into married life on Manus Island where he and his wife ran a small canteen in the town of Lorengau. But authorities arrested Uddin in March 2018 after his claim for refugee status was rejected.
"The exemption ... which permitted you to remain in the country without an entry permit has ceased," Papua New Guinea's immigration minister Rimbink Pato wrote to Uddin.
Uddin's wife Alice and their son Mohamed Ali. Source: Supplied
"You are therefore now unlawfully in Papua New Guinea. I have signed orders for your removal from the country and your detention until you depart.
"Should you fail to depart voluntarily, removal action will be enforced."
Uddin was eventually deported back to Bangladesh, torn away from his wife and young son.
"They deported me, but love brought me back," Uddin says.
A 'miracle' return
While most refugees scrambled to leave Manus after their experiences inside the squalid detention centre, Uddin was desperate to return to his family.
"Every day and night I used [to] cry about my son and my wife," he says. "Thinking about how my son eats, plays and lives made me wonder and wonder a lot."
He first exhausted all legal means to return to Papua New Guinea, including applying for a dependency visa.
Court documents state that after these attempts were knocked-back, he paid a people smuggler to take him out of Bangladesh and back into Papua New Guinea.
Uddin longs to be reunited with his son. Source: Supplied
He travelled by boat from Thailand to Indonesia before entering Papua New Guinea again in November 2018, without a visa or a passport.
Uddin says that, during the six-week journey, three of his close friends were shot dead as they floated in the boat near the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.
"But I was the miracle. I don't know why," he says.
Witnessing the killings and surviving would later spur Uddin to convert from his Muslim faith to Christianity.
Source: Google Maps
Uddin then made his way east to Manus Island, where, reunited with his wife and son, life returned to normal.
"After that, I worked for my son and my family," Uddin says.
But a few months later, Uddin would be arrested again.
"For a few months from late 2018 to early 2019, things, again, apparently went smoothly for [Uddin] and his wife," Justice David Cannings told the National Court earlier this year.
Uddin inside Bomana prison. Source: Supplied
"But in March 2019, he was arrested by the police in circumstances that are unclear.
"There is no clear evidence as to why, how, where or when he was arrested."
Uddin was arrested after trying to get identity papers so he could register his business. He would later plead guilty to illegally entering the country.
"I am a good man. I came illegally from Bangladesh to Papua New Guinea. But I did it for love," he says.
Put in prison
Uddin was then sent to Bomana prison while Papua New Guinea's immigration authorities worked to have him deported again.
"My wife and son are still in the highlands. They are struggling with no job and no money. They need my support," he says. "What can I do?"
The deportation was postponed after Uddin started his own court proceedings, arguing that Papua New Guinea's authorities had infringed his human rights and he should be allowed to stay in the country.
A bucket used inside Bomana prison for inmates to wash themselves. Source: Supplied
"I need my wife, my family and my son. At the moment they are surviving in a very harsh situation," he says.
The human rights case was heard in February 2020. Justice David Cannings handed down his decision in April.
By that point, Uddin had spent a combined three years and seven months either imprisoned in Papua New Guinea, or unlawfully-detained in immigration detention.
Justice Cannings found that the treatment of Uddin, and his proposed deportation, was "harsh, oppressive and not warranted".
"There is no evidence that he has committed any offence other than illegal entry under the Migration Act," he wrote in his decision.
In April this year, Justice Cannings ordered that Uddin be granted residency in Papua New Guinea for a period of three years.
10 days of freedom
After Justice Cannings' decision, Uddin was briefly released from Bomana prison.
But some 10 days later, when authorities indicated they would appeal, Uddin was back behind bars.
"We won in the National Court. He was released for about 10 days, then they appealed against the ruling," said refugee advocate Ian Rintoul, who has been supporting Uddin's case from Australia.
Uddin and another prisoner inside Bomana prison. Source: Supplied
His case will now go to Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court, but no date has been set.
"He's been re-detained while we wait," Mr Rintoul said.
SBS News has contacted the Papua New Guinea government for comment.
Uddin says he is still hopeful that one day he will be reunited with his wife and son on Manus Island.
"I don't know when I will see them again," he says.
"My son called me and said he wanted to come with me. I had to tell him 'I'm in the prison'. It's so difficult.
"My story, what is happening with me, I don't think there's another refugee that has been through that."
