German man living at Delhi airport since March 18
hindustantimes.com> “While others were facilitated by their embassies concerned and were taken for quarantine, officials from the German embassy informed the Indian bureau of immigration that Ziebat is a wanted criminal in their country with several cases of assault and other crimes registered against him. Since he was on a foreign land, they did not take his custody."
This sounds highly suspicious to me. If he is a wanted criminal, I would imagine the German government is especially keen to take him home so that he can be held responsible for his crimes. It sounds to me like he doesn't want to leave for Germany and they can't make him board a "rescue flight".
Germany would be happy to have him board a flight to Germany, where he would be arrested on arrival, the problem is that there are (now) no flights at all. India is unwilling to let a convicted criminal in the country, but he has committed no crimes on Indian soil, so they're not arresting him. In a scenario like this there's very little the German embassy can do, it's not like they have their own private jail ready.
At this point, the guy is probably best off just waiting it out in the transit area, and getting a flight out to Turkey or wherever when they resume.
Germany had a rescue flight from Delhi to Frankfurt at least on 27th March (and likely far more)
Only explanation is he didn't want to take the flight.
> Chris Linford, 56, a cafe owner from Derbyshire, said he and his family were among a group of about 40 British tourists on a German flight from Delhi to Frankfurt on Friday [27th March]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/germany-charte...
There were plenty of flights to Germany at the beginning of the lockdown. They were called rescue flights and I’m sure the German government would have loved to have him on board that flight (so that they can arrest him in Germany).
It’s sounded like he wanted to go to another country but couldn’t due to the lack of international flights.
It's a bit confusing, with the article saying international flights are suspended, but Delhi Departure and Bangkok arrival show flights between the two cities: https://www.bangkokairportonline.com/flight-status-arrivals-.... From there, a flight to Frankfurt leaves at 2300.
The EU also pooled their repatriation flights. He could have gotten on any French, Italian, Spanish etc. transport, space permitting.
There's obviously something wrong with this guy. And if there wasn't before, six weeks at an airport made it happen. He should just go home and for it to be credited as time served.
> The EU also pooled their repatriation flights. He could have gotten on any French, Italian, Spanish etc. transport, space permitting.
Maybe...but the article suggests that his destination was Turkey. And if he is really wanted in Germany I don't he'd want to board a flight to France, Spain or anywhere else in the EU.
Even if the flights are available to passengers, Thailand does not allow anyone enter the country except for very specific reasons - not even citizens and permanent residents are allowed in
As such an airline won't take the passenger
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/thailand/entry-requ...
Is it possible that those flights are cargo-only?
> but he has committed no crimes on Indian soil, so they're not arresting
So India and Germany have no extradition agreement? If so, probably the reason why this guy is in India.
The article says he was traveling between Hanoi and Istanbul. Unless he perfectly timed the cancelation of flights between India and Turkey, he was not intending to stay in India.
At what point does living in a airport become a crime?
If the airport were to "close to the public" for any reason he could be considered as a Trespasser.
Heathrow (for example)[0] has a problem with homeless people sleeping there, if they're warned by security staff and found again then they're considered trespassers, and trespass is illegal.
When poverty or existence becomes a crime.
It's not, and that's why the Indian authorities are letting him stay there.
As a German, I don't know any law that would prohibit that he could return to Germany. The embassies organized the return flights and I read about many complications and fuck-ups, maybe that's what happened. Maybe also he wasn't registered in the "Deutschenliste" (online tool that you register as a German if you travel abroad, so you can be contacted in emergencies). The German embassy in Delhi says on their website (see: https://india.diplo.de/in-de) that no more German flights are planned, but KLM has some flights, but that must be booked by yourself.
He's not prohibited from returning for legal reasons. He's prevented at the moment due to an apparent lack of (direct?) flights. This isn't a normal issue with some German citizen stuck abroad who failed to register. As far as I can tell from the article, he was not planning to return to Germany as he is wanted for a crime there, and was on his way to Turkey through India when India-Turkey flights were canceled.
I imagine Indian authorities would have to cooperate with the German embassy once a flight that is to their satisfaction is available to put him on the flight.
> I imagine Indian authorities would have to cooperate with the German embassy once a flight that is to their satisfaction is available to put him on the flight.
Can they really compel him to board a flight to Germany against his will? I mean technically he's still in-transit and not actually under Indian jurisdiction...
(If anyone is familiar with Indian law I would appreciate their input.)
Speaking in general terms, based on various other countries limiting or restricting their international transit areas, I believe that in-transit areas (or pre-immigration areas in US airports) are usually not actually outside jurisdiction but are permitted by the host country to be accessible to passengers without immigration/customs processing. Therefore, they're not like international waters or airspace.
This is a common misconception, but a transit area is under the host country's jurisdiction.
https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/18561/what-is-the...
Depends. Most countries have extradition treaties. If someone is wanted in a different country they will arrest them and send them over even though they are not accused of a local crime.
I don't know if Germany/India has one. I would expect it though, most countries figure if you are a criminal you are more likely to commit another crime so better let someone else deal with you before then. Thus such treaties are pretty universal.
There are confounding situations here though. Most countries won't make an international incident over what they consider a minor crime: if Germany hasn't asked India, India is stuck unable to arrest someone they might not want to. Also both countries have to agree on the crimes, if India doesn't consider what he is accused of immoral (seems unlikely), or they dislike the legal punishment they don't have to do anything. Many countries won't extradite murders to the US until the US agrees not to seek the death penalty.
Couldn’t Germany issue a red notice and have him extradited if they want him so bad?
They can, but the crimes probably are not big enough to be worth that.
Yeah, that seems odd. But then, I know zero about German law. I suppose that none of the charges against him warrant extradition, so they're cool with him remaining in India. But on the other hand, he has a criminal record, so they don't have to repatriate him.
> But on the other hand, he has a criminal record, so they don't have to repatriate him.
This is what seems highly unlikely to me. I wonder what is written on this in the German media.
A short Google (News) search in German turned up nothing.
Google just recommends me "Ziebart", which is a more common name, I'm wondering if the reporter misspelled his name.
German here fomlowing the German media broadly. This is the first I heard of this story.
I'm not convinced that is the case. I'm going to guess they can take away his citizenship if he has citizenship elsewhere. I'm not sure they can refuse a citizen without citizenship elsewhere, though. This would leave the dude stateless - and while a few countries do this to their citizens, I'm nearly certain that Germany is not one of them.
Every other country - the ones where he is a foreigner - can most certainly refuse his entry, though.
There’s no indication that he has citizenship elsewhere, and you’d expect the article to mention it if he did. And, I mean, realistically, most people don’t; it’s just not very likely.
In any case, the bar for removing citizenship is typically extremely high.
Countries are usually under no particular obligation to repatriate their citizens, though, and they usually can’t force repatriation.
Well, they'd have to let him in. But I don't think they have to arrange for his flight nor have to force him.
Germany's constitution specifically prohibits the taking away of citizenship––it's one of those lessons learnt from the Holocaust when German jews were systematically disenfranchised by taking away their citizenship. Quote:
Article 16
Loss of citizenship may occur only pursuant to a law and, if it occurs against the will of the person affected, only if he does not become stateless as a result.[0]
There is a very narrow exception for certain configurations of dual citizenship, but there's no reason to believe this guy has a second citizenship––his name is more German than comfortable for my tastes, and it would probably be mentioned in the article because it would draw yet another government into this comic relief of an international incident.
Come to think of it, I now kinda wish he had some interesting dual nationality. Cuban, maybe. Or North Korea, if one can dream.
> his name is more German than comfortable for my tastes
Bold claim, Karl.
The article is somewhat inconsistent. In one place, it says he has a criminal record; in another, it says he is wanted. I suspect the word "not" got left out as Germany would take him if he was wanted. Also, he wouldn't have visas for several countries as it says in the article. I think he simply doesn't want to go back to Germany and is happy to stay put until he is able to continue his travel on his terms.
There's nothing preventing you from getting several visas for as many countries as you want/can afford.
While he is apparently wanted in Germany, a run-of-the-mill assault case doesn't trigger an international arrest warrant, and there's no other system that would share such information with foreign visa offices, except possibly the US. It was shared with India in this case only after he became an "issue".
I don't quite understand what the German bureaucracy is supposedly doing differently in this case due to this arrest warrant. I'm somewhat certain that it wouldn't change anything until he sets foot on German ground again. Germany would have both an interest in him returning (for justice, and to prevent any more international embarrassment this guy might provoke), as well as a responsibility to assist him that doesn't just go away if you commit a crime.
Exactly why I suspect he is not wanted, and has declined help from Germany. My speculation only, of course, and almost certainly based on incomplete facts.
EDIT: Of course, assuming he is wanted, that would certainly explain why he would decline German help.
I'm currently stranded in Vietnam (country, not inside the airport).
I imagine there are many people just like me. I happen to be quite lucky because in a country of 100 million, there are zero deaths and fewer than 300 cases, most of which are treated. Lots of things are open now and there are no strict social distancing laws anymore.
It all comes down to how much money you have saved and how long you can stretch it.
This article mentions one Sri Lankan passenger being taken home. I'm a Sri Lankan citizen although I no longer live there. Sri Lanka had its borders closed from March 22, but arranged flights to bring back citizens from situations like this. I can imagine Germany did the same.
It looks like this man just didn't want to leave. An airport with wifi, some shops, bathrooms and electricity, combined with the staff being kind enough to provide him with a recliner and amenities sounds much better than going to a place that he'd be eventually in trouble for his past crimes. If anything, the German consulate should forcefully take him if his criminal records are that severe, but it's their job and these are strange times to begin with.
A few hundred cases and no deaths seems...not likely to be true?
It's true. See: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-vietnam-...
I'm having a hard time believing the numbers given out. So those sorts of articles won't do me much good. I'm having trouble believing almost if not all countries numbers. So this isn't specific to Vietnam disbelief.
As someone who spent years homeless, this is sort of a hoot:
According to the second airport official, Ziebat has mostly spent the last 54 days reading magazines and newspapers, talking to his friends and family over the phone, eating at some of the fast food outlets still in operation within the terminal, interacting with housekeeping and security staff, taking walks within the transit area, and using the airport’s washrooms and toilets. Authorities also provided him with a recliner, mosquito net, toothpaste, food and other basic essentials.
“He told officials that he can manage his expenses. He sleeps on the beds, benches, on the floors, wherever he feels like. He is alone in the transit area as it is not being used because the airport is closed for passengers,” said the second officer.
Gosh, I wish my life had been that good when everything went completely to hell. Sounds fairly cushy to me.
Not to compare, but I spent a couple days at an airport stranded, sleeping on my mattress and a sleeping bag. It was fairly comfortable with wifi, toilets, and other basics available at no cost or trouble. It kinda made me realize that it serves the purpose of someone in a situation like that. Lack of sun wore me out with 24/7 artificial lights though.
I was wondering if he could get access to the executive lounges. I'd work hard to find a connection to get in one. Some have hot showers
That's good information. I hope he is getting access to hot showers. I think that's a reasonable request and can be justified on the basis of "there's a pandemic on and it's important germ control."
You read these headline grabbing stories, also like the one about the couple stranded in Tahiti during this virus, or the original actual guy behind "The Terminal" movie -- and you usually find out that the story is almost always one of bad judgement combined with somewhat unusual circumstances that they aren't trying to avoid like a normal person would.
Sometimes the news tries to make it seem like they were unwitting victims who slipped through the cracks and are lost in the system. But no, they're actively acting pretty dumb too. Not much life lesson to be learned from these cases, just spectator sport.
This guy is wanted for assault, was in Vietnam, hmm? He'd be lucky if anyone wanted to make a movie out of it.
Once you get behind the eight ball for some reason, it can be impossible to get out. I don't know how to get out from behind the eight ball in my own life and I think I'm well educated, talented, virtuous and blah blah blah. It's never enough and I'm not some kind of criminal or something.
You don't know the story. Maybe it was self defense. We don't have all the details.
It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global pandemic were just being idiots!"
You completely misquoted the parent.
This man is accused of several cases of assault, he may have seriously hurt somebody and they want to take it to court. I also do not see how your US race and gender comments below are relevant to this thread about a German man.
It would be terrible to be wrongly accused of assault. But it doesn't seem like something people should just ignore and give people the benefit of the doubt on.
> It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global pandemic were just being idiots!"
Wholeheartedly agree. Humans of all stripes seem to have this need to place blame on others' failings on the person being "at fault" yet somehow their own mishaps are "bad luck." It's like the comment threads underneath lapses in security or getting phished. "Oh well, IIiiiiii wouldn't have fallen for that," until they inevitably do.
If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist.
If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist.
Oh, it gets so much worse than that. If you are the "wrong kind of person" for some reason, misfortune comes at a much higher cost than for other people. In the US, white people generally suffer lighter consequences than people of color for the same mistakes. Men are generally judged less harshly than women for various things. Etc.
So it's more like saying "You fool! You shouldn't have done X! And, also, if you had any sense, you would have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc"
> "You fool! ...you [should] have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc
Do you actually know someone in person who has said this in response to someone else's misfortune? Or are you just using the image of some random person saying this to fuel an anti-white man sentiment?
What I'm saying is that in many cases, telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever has on their life.
This is why we have terms like "Mansplaining" or "Whitesplaining." That doesn't mean a man or a white person simply acting like you are stupid and need it explained like you are five and then everything will work. It means that in the context of someone who is completely oblivious to the reality that when women do things exactly like men, they get different results socially and when people of color do things exactly like whites, they also get different results.
When two black men were arrested in Starbucks in Philadelphia for sitting there without ordering and asking to be let into the bathroom because they were waiting for someone they were meeting, one of the reasons it was controversial is because of the white patrons who protested it on the basis of "I've sat in here before without ordering and used the bathroom and no one ever called the cops on me."
I have zero interest in fueling anti-white man sentiment. That's absolutely not my agenda. But racism, sexism, etc are very much alive and well. Pretending they aren't is being part of the problem, not part of the solution.
> telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever has on their life.
Race and gender may still play a role, but acting like it is the determining factor in one's life is too much. People have agency over their lives, and can make choices to make their situations better. The fact that someone is white or male does not negate this. I live in rural Missouri, and there are plenty of white people who make bad decisions and hurt their prospects in the process.
Also, "whitesplaining" and "mansplaining" are really incredibly racist and sexist. You should really consider using other terms.
> but acting like it is the determining factor in one's life is too much
I did not read that at all. This is the key message IMHO:
> If you are the "wrong kind of person" for some reason, misfortune comes at a much higher cost than for other people. In the US, white people generally suffer lighter consequences than people of color for the same mistakes. Men are generally judged less harshly than women for various things. Etc.
More eloquently explained here: https://www.quora.com/Is-life-easier-as-a-white-person/answe...
Keyword: "easier"
No one is saying they don't have agency, but sometimes, having a headstart is all it takes for a big difference in results over the years, not to mention if that advantage doesn't go away your whole life.
Perhaps beside the point, but also some people do not believe in 'agency' or 'free will' as such, myself included. I consider myself privileged, and I'm not white.
> Also, "whitesplaining" and "mansplaining" are really incredibly racist and sexist. You should really consider using other terms.
That we agree on.
I generally don't use those terms. I was just saying they exist for a reason.
I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board of HN. My gender continues to prove to be a barrier to effective networking here and I have been here nearly eleven years and between my old account and this one I have over 50k karma, which would put me fairly high on the leader board if it were under one account.
I'm not acting like race or gender are "the determining factor," but my experiences in the last decade or so make it painfully clear that a factor like gender can be stubbornly hard to overcome, no matter how hard you try and all that.
I made it my hobby to try to get articles to the front page of HN while I was homeless. I hit the leader board about a month after I got myself back into housing without going through some program and then I changed my handle. So for various reasons when I share my thoughts and observations on things like poverty or gender issues, some folks here are interested.
I understand that your perspective is vastly different from most people on this site, and I do appreciate your input. Without people like you speaking up, certain issues would never be addressed.
My only request is that you avoid emotional and logical amplification of reality. Using terms like mansplaining and whitesplaining, and using phrases like "And, also, if you had any sense, you would have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc" exaggerates a bad situation, makes people in those identity groups defensive, and weakens your argument. Reality is unfair enough that just highlighting it will lead to change eventually.
Using terms like mansplaining and whitesplaining
As noted above, I don't generally use those terms. You are "using" them yourself currently by including them in your comment telling me I am wrong to "use" them.
There's a pandemic on and I haven't slept. I don't really care to discuss this further with you. But for the record I don't think you have any right whatsoever to "request" that I behave in accordance with your wishes while leveling BS accusations in an uncharitable reading of my comment that you refuse to back down on.
Truer words never written. It’s amazing to me how many ways we can dress up “oh, you’re poor? Well, uh, have you tried...not...being poor?”
"Why, no. That hadn't occurred to me! But if you will give me some money, I will be happy to test drive it and see how I like it!"
;)
And sometimes you get MS St. Louis
You're probably right. "The Terminal" is still a wonderful feel-good movie though. "Medicine for goat" :-D
This is the real reason he is stuck.
> "He added that because India did not give Ziebat a visa due to his criminal background — criminal offences are taken into consideration when assessing individual visa cases in India — he remains unauthorised to leave the airport’s transit area. In India, an international passenger can normally stay in transit for just one day, and requires Indian visa to step out of this designated space for travellers passing through the country. The officer added that Ziebat has also not formally applied for an Indian visa."
Thousands if not more Indians have been stranded all over, as government suddenly closed entry to their own citizens. Even incidents like a KLM flight being not allowed to land in Delhi because it had Indians on board. Much confusing instructions from the government to airlines. Passengers from Europe were banned, but the confusing instructions meant that passengers transiting through Europe also were banned. Then seemingly without material change in situation, now the Government is allowing flights back to India.
Also these flights are being operated at full capacity, no social distancing. People have to pay for seats beforehand too, while other countries like US only requires an indemnity bond for future payment for evacuation flights.
> Then seemingly without material change in situation, now the Government is allowing flights back to India.
Well if a rule was unreasonably harsh you hardly need a material change in the situation to change it, do you? You can't complain that they weren't letting Indians into India, and then complain that they suddenly started to let Indians back into India.
I think that's their point. It's tantamount to admitting the earlier decision was without basis.
Point is it shows how wrong the original situation was, or vice versa
Mathematically, someone can say P, or not-P, or "P and not-P". One of those is most obviously wrong.
The KLM flight would have landed after the border closure. The presence of Indians on the flight had nothing to do with it.
I dont know if it's still the case but in Frankfurt some people were also stuck in transit for weeks. Their counties couldn't take them back because they weren't able to organize flights.
Yup, it's taken some people a month to get back home, and that usually involved negotiations between countries and special flights.
I actually read `March 2018` at first. This is not as scary as the story of Mr Mehran Karimi Nasseri (guy who spent 18 years stuck in an airport).
Yeah, I was surprised that the article made a reference to the movie loosely based on Nasseri, but not to the actual story.
Not related to the topic: I have Firefox set to block autoplay, nevertheless the video in the middle of this article just play when I scroll down. Is it happening to someone else? How can websites bypass Firefox configuration?
JavaScript. Web browser controls only work if the page uses the standard APIs.
Much of the reason browser's don't block simple things is that advertisers will happily write a memory-hogging CPU-hogging virtual machine to force the feature to run anyway. You can't win by trying to control what hostile code does after you let it run. Block untrusted domains from running code on your machine.
It's probably easier to run a JS script to mine crypto than a virtual machine to run a video ad though.
I can imagine it's a cat-and-mouse game of sorts. Maybe they just say 'play' via Javascript after the video has loaded?
It's a JWPlayer video, maybe they have some tricks up their sleeve.
If he has to be stuck in an airport, the Delhi airport is a good choice. They have sleeping lounges (at least they did when I was their in 2001) where you can sleep, although with zero privacy.
That sounds like any airport then, except they put a 'sleeping lounge' sign up?
Many airports nowadays seem to be deliberately hostile to sleepy travellers, most commonly by having armrests between all seats so you can't lie down across several, but sometimes even by having staff come around and wake up sleeping travellers on a regular basis. The Guide to Sleeping in Airports exists for a reason, and it rates New Delhi highly: https://www.sleepinginairports.net/guides/new-delhi-airport-...
Red tape is the real reason