Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian political refugee who lived for more than 18 years at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport and inspired director Steven Spielberg for his film The Terminal, died on Saturday.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian political refugee who lived for more than eighteen years at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport and inspired director Steven Spielberg for his film The Terminal, died there on Saturday.
Found lifeless in Terminal 2F of the airport, the causes of his death are natural. After spending the money collected for the film, he had been back for a few weeks at the airport. Several thousand euros were found on him.
Born in 1945 in Masjed Soleiman, in the Iranian province of Khuzestan, he left Tehran for London in 1974 in search of his natural mother. He was unable to return to British territory after having his passport and United Nations refugee certificate stolen, and was stripped of his nationality in the 1980s when he returned to Iran. Then began for him a long and chaotic journey in Europe, which saw him being expelled from each new country in which he thought of settling, for lack of proper papers.
Since 1988, this homeless person like no other, nicknamed “Sir Alfred”, had therefore settled, with the authorization of the authorities, within the confines of Charles-de-Gaulle airport. Still undocumented, shortly before the film’s release, he was planning to leave for Canada, after releasing his biography “The Terminal man”, and receiving a large sum of money for having inspired Steven Spielberg’s film in which Tom Hanks played a character inspired by his experience.
In 1999, he had obtained refugee status in France, and a residence permit, but had refused to sign his papers. Having become a very familiar figure with airport staff, he was the subject of numerous radio and TV reports around the world, before gaining recognition thanks to Spielberg’s film. “At one point, he was giving up to six interviews a day” recalls the BBC.
He had first left Roissy in 2006 for a stay in hospital, then boarding in a hotel where he lived thanks to the money brought in by the film. “Spielberg’s film suggests he was stuck in a staging area in Paris – Charles-de-Gaulle. In reality, he always remained in the public area, free to move about” says an airport official.
Last September, after a stay in a nursing home, he decided to settle again in Roissy. “Nestled on his bench, surrounded by carts containing the few possessions he had amassed, he spent his days writing his life in a notebook and reading.