A big part of his life story was that in 1977 he was arrested and tortured by Iranian secret police officers Savak due to his opposition to the Shah, after which he lost his passport and was deported towards Europe.
In 1970 he was reportedly involved in a student strike against university rules at the University of Tehran which got out of control and, along with other “ringleaders”, was interrogated for a few hours by Savak police, after which the case was dropped. . He was not arrested or tortured and he was not expelled.
However, Nasseri’s claim that he spent time in Britain was true. In the early 1970s he traveled from Iran thanks to a businessman brother, with whom he lived for a time in London. In 1973 he began a course at the University of Bradford in Yugoslav studies. But he failed to complete the course either because he had no more money or (according to comrades who wondered what an Iranian did in England to study Serbo-Croatian), because he had failed his exams.
Nasseri then left England to travel in Europe and after a while his letters home dried up. Members of his family have requested help from the Iranian Foreign Ministry to find him, but to no avail.
Then in 1991, a family friend saw Nasseri sitting on his airport bench. When he tried to greet him, however, Nasseri refused to acknowledge him and subsequently dismissed his family members and other friends who tried to get in touch. Eventually they stopped trying, concluding that for some reason he had chosen the life he wanted to live.
His own story was that after he was deported from Iran in 1977, he spent the next few years traveling across Europe in search of asylum. Finally, in 1981, Belgium granted him refugee status and identity documents. After the documents were lost, thrown away or stolen, he left Belgium for France, where he spent time in prison for illegal immigration. He reportedly attempted to return to England but was turned away at Heathrow and sent back to Charles de Gaulle Airport, where he remained in limbo.
According to Paul Berczeller, Nasseri appears to have arrived at the airport sane, but at some point, while his lawyer negotiated identity papers, he lost touch with reality. An informal support network grew around him, providing medical help as well as books and a radio.
He was happy to chat with passers-by, but over time he preferred to talk to people in the media – filmmakers and journalists – who could usually be relied on for usually modest gratification. He was reportedly paid $250,000 for the film rights by Steven Spielberg’s production company DreamWorks – money he deposited in a bank at the airport.
Throughout his time at the airport, where he was surrounded by boxes, newspapers and plastic bags, Nasseri meticulously groomed himself, using the airport toilets. Initially, he relied on a Burger King for his meals, but rejoiced when the franchise was taken over by McDonald’s, “because I prefer McDonald’s fries.” He always left a tip.
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Nasseri, whose story also inspired the 1993 French film Tombés du ciel (Lost in Transit), told people he was waiting for a green card so he could go to America and a British passport so he could go to England. He tended to forget to mention that the French and Belgians had offered him citizenship – which he could not take due to his refusal to admit he was Iranian or to sign his name other than Sir Alfred Mehran.
In 2006, Nasseri was hospitalized for an operation, then he was taken care of by the French Red Cross in an airport hotel, living for a time in a reception center and then in a Paris accommodation center. In September of this year, however, he returned to the airport and took up residence at Terminal 2F. “I realize I’m famous,” Nasseri said The New York Times in 2003. “I wasn’t interesting until I came here.”
The Telegraph, London.
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