![]() The solution was close, because if Belgium issued any new documents, Nasser could be identified again as someone.īut the stick was still: Belgium could republish documents only if Nasser showed up in person, but he could not travel to get documents… without having documents! He received letters of support from people from all over the world.Īmong other things, Nasser attracted the attention of French human rights lawyer Christian Bourguet, who later became his lawyer. Meanwhile, Naser's situation was recognized internationally through journalists from all over the world who visited the airport to interview him. Very attentive to personal care, Nasser bathed in the men's bathroom and sent his clothes to the airport laundry. He ate regularly at McDonald's, rolled Pall Mall cigarettes - airport staff saw him as a lucky terminal and brought him newspapers and food. ![]() With luggage always near him, Nasser spent his time reading and studying economics, and he recounted his experience in a diary of over a thousand pages. Without documents and without a country of origin, Mehran Karimi Nasseri's residence at Terminal 1 of Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris had just begun.ĭays passed, then weeks, then months, then years. Nasser claimed that his file containing refugee documents was stolen on a train in Paris, and so when he arrived at London Heathrow Airport, passport control returned him back to France, where he was initially arrested by police but his entry into the airport proved lawful and he was soon released. He was traveling to London via Paris in 1988, when at that moment the story becomes complicated. Refugee credentials allowed her to apply for citizenship in a European country: the husband claimed his mother was British and, after spending years in Belgium, in 1986 he decided to settle in the UK. Mehran Karimi Nasseri then sought political asylum outside Iran and, after being ignored by capitals across Europe for four years, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Belgium finally granted him official refugee status in 1981. He said he took part as a student in the protests against Shah Reza Pahlavi: back in Iran in 1977 Nasseri was imprisoned and then interned for anti-government activities. ![]() Born in Masjed Soleiman in Iran in 1943, Nasseri traveled to the UK in 1973 to study at Bradford University.
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