Rio de Janeiro
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian who lived at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years and whose saga inspired Steven Spielberg’s film The Terminal, died this Saturday (12) of a heart attack at the age of 77. Where? In Terminal 2F at the airport, he called home.
Nasseri lived in Terminal 1 of the airport from 1988 to 2006 due to a lack of residence papers and later at his own request. He slept on a red plastic bench and showered on the premises of employees he was friends with.
The crew dubbed him Lord Alfred, and he became something of a celebrity among the passengers, especially after the release of Spielberg’s 2004 film starring Tom Hanks.
Nasseri was born in 1945 in Soleiman, part of Iran then under British jurisdiction, to an Iranian father and British mother. He left Iran in 1974 to study in England. When he returned, he said in British press interviews, he was arrested for protesting against the Shah and being expelled without a passport.
He asked for political asylum in several European countries. UNHCR in Belgium issued him a refugee card, but the briefcase containing the document was reportedly stolen at a Paris train station.
The French police later arrested him but could not deport him anywhere because he had no official documents. He ended up with Charles de Gaulle in August 1988 and stayed. Other bureaucratic jumbles and increasingly strict European immigration laws kept him in a legal no man’s land for years.
When he finally received the refugee documents, he described his surprise and uncertainty when leaving the airport. He reportedly refused to sign them and ended up staying there for a few more years until he was hospitalized in 2006 and then moved to an animal shelter in Paris. A few weeks before his death he returned to Charles de Gaulle.