“I am very afraid. My life is in danger and I fear for it. “I have received death threats.” A young Egyptian who traveled yesterday Tuesday hidden in the hold of a plane from Cairo that landed at the Loiu airport (Bizkaia) thus told the Police the reasons why he fled his country. The words of young AH, who is 25 years old, were quoted to this newspaper today by Javier Galparsoro, a lawyer from CEAR (Spanish Commission for Refugee Assistance), who assisted him in his statement before the agents. The man said he had fled his country for reasons of “religious persecution” and had just requested asylum in Spain, according to the lawyer. When he was detained at the airport, without resisting, he refused to sign the return order. He doesn’t want to return to his country.
In his 44 years of professional service caring for migrants and refugees, Galparsoro had not met anyone who had managed to escape their country by hiding in the guts of a plane. The chief lieutenant of the Loiu airport, José Ignacio Pinedo, confirms that it is the first case of this type that has occurred at this facility. According to what the internal border investigation service of the Civil Guard has learned, this Egyptian person works at the Cairo airport and “has access to restricted areas” that allowed him to secretly board the plane that was going to fly to Bilbao.
Galparsoro assures about his client: “He is fine, although a little scared. He is well cared for in the non-admitted room [del aeropuerto de Loiu]. He is having good behavior and reports that he fled his country for reasons of religious persecution. He has insistently asked that he not be deported to his country. He is afraid, he fears for his life if he returns and assures that he was receiving death threats.”
The young Egyptian arrived dressed in a T-shirt and pants. He did not carry any belongings, except for a mobile phone, says Lieutenant Pinedo. “An Iberia employee who was going to unload the suitcases from the plane’s hold observed that, upon opening the rear hatch inside, a person ran out,” says this Civil Guard commander. He walked through the aircraft platform and arrived at the terminal. The agents and the private security of the airfield gave the alert to try to arrest him. “He was quite excited,” says the lieutenant, so he was assisted by an ambulance, although it was not necessary to transfer him to a hospital.
The stowaway was handed over to the Immigration Service of the National Police and received assistance from a lawyer on duty, as well as Cear’s lawyer. At first, the agents offered him to sign a return order on the same plane in which he had traveled to Cairo. That aircraft, which arrived in Bilbao at 2:20 p.m., was scheduled to return to the Egyptian capital at 3:30 p.m., although its departure was delayed because a double search of the aircraft had to be carried out before the passengers who were going to fly to the African country boarded. Given the impossibility of returning him to Egypt on that flight, the possibility of sending him to his country on the direct flight scheduled for next Monday was considered.
The young Egyptian’s statement before police officers and lawyers was made “in precarious conditions,” says Galparsoro, who was present at the time. His statement was taken with a sworn Arabic interpreter “through a phone call and with a bad connection,” says Galparsoro. This lawyer assures that the Egyptian citizen had his passport on his cell phone and that all the identifying information that he had provided to the Police “matches the documentation” that he carries on his phone. He did not give political or war reasons to claim asylum in Spain, but rather religious reasons.
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“In the first instance, on Tuesday afternoon, they presented him with a deportation order that they had pre-prepared,” he points out. He refused to sign it and requested asylum in Spain. The National Police officially informed Cear’s lawyer this morning that the stowaway wants to request the international protection order, which could be formalized this Wednesday afternoon. This request must be processed before the Ministry of the Interior, which has four days to resolve this case. “Due to my experience and the characteristics of this case, there are many possibilities that asylum will be granted,” confides the lawyer.
Late this afternoon, after almost four hours of negotiations, the Egyptian stowaway’s request for asylum at the border was completed with the presence of an Arabic interpreter at the National Police Station at Loiu Airport. Now the clock starts for whether or not the request will be admitted for processing by the Asylum and Refuge Office, which has a maximum period of four days to resolve.
The deportation procedure is paralyzed until the Interior resolves. Meanwhile, the stowaway remains in the airport’s return lounge under the custody and surveillance of the National Police, unable to leave the premises “although technically he is not detained,” comments the president of Cear. “The young man is calm, in good health, and above all with blind trust in Zehar Errefuxiatuekin and his entire team, in view of the admission of his request and immediate reception, which is very well founded and exhaustive and profound.” , Add. The petition is based on reasons of persecution for religious reasons that the Egyptian “has explained in detail and precision”: “He has said verbatim that he does not want to return to his country and to please not be deported, because death awaits him there, detention, disappearance, torture or everything at the same time.”
The story of his personal circumstances has been “very shocking and emotional,” he commented to the Police, and has gone so far as to assure that “during his childhood he suffered serious sexual abuse.”
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