BOBIGNY, France — An Iranian who got stuck
for 18 years in a Paris airport, inspiring a Steven Spielberg movie starring
Tom Hanks, died on Saturday at the terminal, an airport official said.
اضافة اعلان
Mehran Karimi Nasseri died of natural causes just
before midday on Saturday in terminal 2F at Charles de Gaulle airport outside
the French capital, the official told AFP.
Caught originally in an immigration trap — unable to
enter France and with nowhere to go — he became dependent on his unusual place
of abode and increasingly a national and international cause celebrity.
He called himself “Sir Alfred”, and a small section
of airport parquet and plastic bench became his domain.
Karimi Nasseri’s peculiar story came to the
attention of Hollywood director Spielberg, inspiring the 2004 film “The
Terminal”, which starred Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Hanks played a man who becomes trapped at New York’s
JFK airport when his home country collapses into revolution.
After spending most of the money he received for the
film, Karimi Nasseri returned to the airport a few weeks ago, the official
said. Several thousand euros were found on him.
Born in 1945 in Masjed Soleiman, in the Iranian
province of Khuzestan, Karimi Nasseri took up residence in the airport in
November 1988 after flying from Iran to
London, Berlin, and Amsterdam in an
effort to locate his mother.
He had been expelled from every other country he
landed in because he was unable to produce the correct paperwork.
At Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, an informal support
network grew up around him, providing food and medical help along with books
and a radio.
In 1999, he was granted refugee status and the right
to remain in France.
“I’m not quite sure what I want to do, stay at
Roissy or leave,” he said after being handed the right to live in France. “I
have papers, I can stay here, I think I should carefully study all the options
before making a decision.”
He did not leave then.
“He no longer wants to leave the airport,” his
lawyer Christian Bourguet said at the time. “He’s scared of going.”
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