tempting fate, a 28-year-old Algerian played a lottery ticket and ended up winning a quarter of a million euros in a Belgian national lottery game. However, not everything is fortune in its wake, since the winner is also an illegal immigrant and in order to collect the 250,000 euros (just under 270,000 dollars) of the prize, he must prove his identity.
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The immigrant’s attorney, Alexander Berstraete, told the AFP that initially the young man tried to collect the prize using three friends also North Africans, who however ended up being accused of theft and arrested.
Finally, andhe young man presented himself to the police together with the lawyer, and the winning ticket is now in the possession of the justice of the Belgian city of Bruges. Presenting himself to the police, his three friends were released.
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“My client is in an illegal situation, he has no papers and he does not have a bank account either,” said the lawyer, who added that “we are looking for these documents that can prove his identity, and for that he will have to contact his family in Algeria.”
The winning ticket (the kind where you need to scratch off a series of numbers) had been purchased at Zeebrugge, a Belgian port city known for attracting undocumented migrants trying to reach England hidden in trucks or containers.
Faced with that situation, the young Algerian received from the Belgian authorities a promise not to be returned to the border or to his country before receiving his earnings. Berstraete said that the young Algerian has no intention of applying for asylum in Belgium.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Belgian Lottery said the case is now in the hands of the prosecutor’s office in Bruges, in the north of the country.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EL COMERCIO (GDA)
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