Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian man who lived in the Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, for 18 years from 1988 to 2006 Died on Saturday at the Paris airport.
As per the officials, he died after a heart attack in the airport’s Terminal 2F around midday. Police and a medical team treated him but were not able to save him.
Nasseri lived in the airport’s Terminal 1 from 1988 until 2006, first in legal limbo because he lacked residency papers and later by apparent choice.
He used to sleep on a red plastic bench and had made friends with the airport workers. He would also shower in the staff facilities, write in his diary, read magazines, and survey passing travelers.
The airport staff had nicknamed Nasseri ‘Lord Alfred’, and he eventually became a mini-celebrity among passengers. Even Hollywood filmmaker, Steven Spielberg, was inspired by his saga and made the film The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks, based on Nasseri’s life in 2004. It was later made into the French film, Lost in Transit, and an opera called Flight.
Tom Hanks played a man trapped at New York’s JFK airport when his home country collapsed into revolution in The Terminal.
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.
About Mehran Karimi Naseeri
Karimi Nasseri was born to an Iranian father and a British mother in 1945 in Masjed Soleiman, in the Iranian province of Khuzestan. He left Iran to study in England in 1974. When he returned, he said, he was imprisoned for protesting against the Shah and was expelled without a passport.
Nasseri had taken 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 applied for political asylum in several European countries and the UNHCR in Belgium had granted gave him refugee credentials but he claimed that his briefcase containing the refugee certificate had been stolen at a train station in Paris.
The French police later arrested him but could not deport him anywhere because he had no official documents, following which Nasseri ended up at Charles de Gaulle in August 1988 and stayed there.
When he finally received his refugee papers, he described his insecurity about leaving the airport. His lawyer Christian Bourguet said at the time, “He no longer wants to leave the airport,” and added, “He’s scared of going”.
Nasseri had reportedly refused to sign them and ended up staying at the airport for several more years until he was hospitalized in 2006, and later lived in a Paris shelter.
In the weeks before his death, Nasseri had taken up living at Charles de Gaulle Airport again, an airport official said.
