The story of a man who spent 18 years at the airport (6 photos)

Did you know that the movie "The Terminal" with Tom Hanks is based on real events? Iranian Mehran Karimi Nasseri, also known as Sir Alfred, lived at Charles de Gaulle Airport for almost twenty years - from 1988 to 2006, his home was Terminal No. 1.





Who is Sir Alfred?



It is difficult to answer this question. No one knows the story of Sir Alfred, not even himself. He was born in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company settlement located in the Iranian city of Mesjed Soleyman in 1945, 1947 or 1953. Sir Alfred claimed to be Iranian, British or Swedish. His father was an Iranian doctor who worked for an oil company. After his death in 1972, Sir Alfred was told that he was born out of wedlock and his mother was a Scottish nurse who worked for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. After this, his family disowned him. Alfred left home and went to northern England to study Yugoslav economics. In 1974 he returned to Iran, where he became involved in protests against the Shah, which Sir Alfred said led to his arrest and torture. Because of his participation in protests and his beliefs, he was stripped of his Iranian citizenship and expelled from the country.

How did Sir Alfred end up in Terminal 1?

Sir Alfred needed to find a country that would grant him refugee status as he no longer had citizenship. He was planning to travel to Glasgow in the hope of finding his birth mother, although he had little idea what name she lived under. The first plane he boarded flew from Tehran to London. Over the next few years, Nasseri asked at least seven countries to grant him asylum, and it was not until October 1981 that Belgium responded to his request. At that time, he had not had a country to call his own for about four years. Nasseri spent the next six years in Belgium, where he worked in a library, studied, received social assistance and thought about where he would like to live. He eventually decided that he wanted to settle in the United Kingdom and traveled to England via Paris.





From this point on the story gets a little confusing. According to one version, Nasseri's briefcase, which contained documents confirming his refugee status, was stolen on a train on the way to Paris. According to other sources, Nasseri sent his documents back to Brussels on his way to England and lied about them being stolen. In any case, Nasseri decided to board a plane to London without any documents. As you probably guessed, this trick did not work with the authorities, and he was sent back to France from England.

Thus began a transnational game of “potatoes”, in which Nasseri acted as a ball, which was thrown around between different countries. He was sent back and forth between England, Belgium and France, but no one wanted anything to do with him. Eventually, Nasseri was sent back to France from England again. At that time, he had no money or other options left. Thus began his life in Terminal 1 of Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Sir Alfred's new home

Sir Alfred's stay at Terminal 1 began on August 26, 1988. He settled on a red bench on the food court floor, around which he placed boxes, suitcases and plastic bags containing all his belongings. Alfred also had a pillow, blankets and sheets, and he carefully made his bench-bed every evening. He passed the time by doing small jobs for money, eating at various restaurants, mostly McDonald's, and people watching.



In 1992, after four years of living in Terminal 1, a French human rights lawyer named Christian Bourget took over Sir Alfred's case. That same year, a French court ruled that Sir Alfred had entered France legally, so he could not be evicted from the airport, but he also could not legally leave the airport. Because of this decision, Sir Alfreda is stuck in a state of perpetual limbo.

In 1999, Christian Bourget finally convinced Belgium to send Sir Alfred replacement documents that would allow him to obtain permission to remain in France. But when Sir Alfred received the documents, he refused to sign them, considering them a forgery. With this refusal, he sentenced himself to another seven years of life at the airport, until 2006. Then he had to leave the airport for the first time since 1988 because he needed to go to hospital.



In 2004, Steven Spielberg directed the film Terminal, starring Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks plays a man who is stranded at JFK Airport in New York for nine months after his passport is invalid. Sir Alfred was unable to see the film when it was released because there was no cinema at the airport, but he was paid between $200,000 and $300,000 for the rights to the story.

Sir Alfred no longer lives at Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle Airport. After his hospitalization, he lived for some time in a Parisian shelter, and there are rumors that he eventually received British citizenship. If Sir Alfred's story teaches us anything, it's that you should never let your documents out of sight when traveling.