Iranian refugee who inspired ‘The Terminal’ movie dies

PARIS, 12 Nov. (DPA/EP) –

Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Naseri, whose 18-year story trapped in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport inspired the script for the film ‘The Terminal’, has died at the airport itself.

An airport spokesman has confirmed that Naseri died of natural causes in Terminal 2F, where he moved back to in mid-September after several years living in a residence and then in a hotel.

Naseri lost the documentation that accredited him as a refugee during a stopover in Paris in 1988, so he could neither continue his trip nor leave the airport and therefore lived in Terminal 1.

After several years of administrative efforts, he was granted a French visa in 1999, although he continued to live at the airport, in a cabin under some escalator.

In 2004 his story came to the big screen at the hands of Steven Spielberg. Finally, in 2006, she left the airport to visit a hospital, moved into a house, and with the money that the movie brought her, she moved into a hotel.

Later he returned to the airport, where he toured the facilities accompanied by a cart in which he carried his possessions. After his death, the airport workers have covered the place where he used to sit with a white sheet, according to the newspaper ‘Le Parisien’.