Trying to get a handle on what the story was is tricky because the story and its background kept changing over the years. Was he stateless? Mentally ill? Probably a bit of each one, and none of them are laughing matters. He was just stubborn and intractable.
Reports from the time say he hung out in fast food joints and camped amongst his luggage in various Terminal One alcoves. People came to know him. He uses the airport restrooms for personal hygiene and cleans up seats in waiting lounges before he goes to sleep. Tepeli has never been to new Istanbul Airport but saw it on TV. He is sad that he will leave the airport after the transfer of operations slated for the New Year's Eve but praised the new airport he describes as "big and modern.
If the authorities can give me a place here, it would be great. Shopkeepers also know Tepeli very well and support him. Serdar Demirel, who works in a souvenir shop in the international terminal, said he knows Tepeli, who has come by his shop every morning or afternoon for 15 years now. Years passed as the workers at the airport began to see Nasseri as a staple of the terminal, and they brought him food and newspapers. He loved to roll Pall Mall cigarettes for himself.
On the international scene, the story soon became a sensation. Journalists all around the world visited Charles de Gaulle Airport to interview him. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens sent him letters to remind him that they were thinking about him. Some even sent him money.
Further complicating matters, the Belgian law would not grant return access to a refugee that has left the country. Eventually, Belgium gave way and mailed his documents to him in Also, the French authorities gave him a residential permit. That might seem like good news, but according to Dr. Apparently, Nasseri thought that his new papers were fake.
The documents he received in identified him as Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian. Of course, Bourguet — who had spent nearly a decade helping him — was overwhelmed, but there was still the option of a name change. It is now apparent that living in an airport for years had taken a psychological toll on Nasseri, as it would on anyone. Nasseri simply needed to sign his new papers and get his name changed legally to be free of the airport. Despite Dr Bargain's appeals to humanitarian and refugee aid organisations, no one has offered to give Alfred a home.
Alfred's stay in France began in August , when he was sent back from Heathrow Airport because he had no identity papers. The French jailed him for four months, then freed him in Roissy, where he has stayed ever since. Three months ago, the Belgian government finally agreed to send Alfred's lost refugee papers through the post. Under the Schengen agreement, the French authorities gave him a residence permit and international travel card in September.
He said he thought the papers were fake. The lawyer, who had spent 10 years trying to help him, nearly choked. Now that Alfred is free to travel, Dr Bargain tells him every day that he must leave Roissy airport, but he keeps finding excuses to stay with the vinyl bench and luggage trolley holding 11 years accretion of books and papers.
In the meantime, he complains about the commotion in the terminal, which keeps him awake from 7 a. He shaves and showers every morning in the airport's public bathroom, and lives on hand-outs.
So why has Roissy become the place he is too frightened to leave? British Airways flies from here.
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