Since “The Terminal” opened in the United States in June, reporters have been lining up to meet him at his makeshift airport home, passengers stop to take his photo and fans send him letters — addressed to “Alfred, Terminal 1”.
“I might be famous. But my life hasn’t changed at all. I’m still sitting here, and not in some fancy flat,” Merhan said.
The soft-spoken, balding man says he received more than $300,000 (162,813 pounds) from Spielberg’s production company DreamWorks for the rights to his life story, but he hasn’t touched most of it. He lives on a few euros each day, buying papers, food and coffee.
Merhan, who says he is 59, does not look like a tramp. His moustache is impeccably trimmed, his black hair carefully combed. Although 16 years at the airport have not made him physically ill, his doctor says he has lost his grip on reality.
“Alfred might be on the same record as us. But he’s not on the same groove,” said Philippe Bargain, head of the airport’s medical centre, who has treated Merhan since he arrived in 1988.
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Merhan then bounced across Europe on a homeless odyssey for several years and spent several months in prison for illegal immigration. In 1999, the French authorities finally agreed to grant him refugee status but he had changed his mind.
“When we arrived at the prefecture to sign the papers, it said Merhan Karimi Nasseri on the document — his real name,” Bargain recalls. “Alfred said: ‘I refuse to sign these papers because that’s not my name. My name is Sir Alfred Merhan’.”
Merhan, who denies he was born in Iran and says he does not speak any Farsi, is still without papers but the authorities turn a blind eye to the quiet man in the corner.
“He doesn’t disturb public order,” said a police officer. “He’s not bothering us, so we’re not bothering him. We’ve never had any problems with the guy. He’s a bit of the airport mascot.”
