Mohamed el-Maadioui was released this Tuesday afternoon from the Brians 1 penitentiary center after spending nine days unjustly imprisoned after being mistaken for a French criminal. The 71-year-old man was at risk of being extradited to France, where he would serve a 10-year prison sentence that was handed down to another man with the same name and date of birth.
It all happened on Sunday, February 18, when the National Police detained Mohamed after getting off a plane from Nador (Morocco) at the El Prat airport. The man had come to the city to spend a few days with his children and nephews, who live in Mataró (Maresme), something he does several times a year and that has never caused him any problems until now.
However, when he had to go through the police checkpoint, the officers stopped him when they saw that he shared the same name and date of birth as a man with an international search and arrest warrant for arms and drug trafficking. Seeing these coincidences, the police compared his information and warned that the criminal had a 10-year prison sentence in France.
As a result of this misunderstanding, they arrested him and transferred him to the National Court, which that same Tuesday began the extradition proceedings. Likewise, they ordered his admission to the Brians 1 prison pending the delivery, while his family only had three days to present an appeal to prove his innocence.
According to his nephew, Ahmed el-Maadioui, to La Vanguardia, the National Police did not give his uncle the opportunity to explain himself. “They told him things like ‘shut up’,” explains this relative. “Even when they asked him for the name of his parents, which did not match those of the real criminal, the agents still did not listen to him.”
As his nephew explained, Mohamed’s son was waiting for him since 2 p.m. in Terminal 2 of the airport. Seeing that his father did not appear, he went to speak with the National Police, who confirmed that his passport had been stamped and that, therefore, he had already left. Then his family thought that he had gotten lost or even that he had had some accident and they started looking for him and calling all the hospitals in Barcelona.
When they did not get results, on the night of that same Sunday the family went to the Mataró Mossos and filed a missing persons report, but they were told that they had to wait 24 hours. After letting that period of time pass, they returned and it was then that they were told that Mohamed had been arrested once he had terrorized the city.
Currently, Mohamed el-Maadioui is on provisional release until all administrative procedures are completed. Still, he has yet to receive an apology from the police and, according to his nephew, he feels betrayed by the state in which he has worked and lived for 30 years of his life, where he even has a pension of retirement.
On the other hand, Mohamed assures that everyone who worked at Brians 1 has treated him very well because when they saw that his case was on the news, people knew that he was there by mistake. However, his nephew reports that there has been a lack of communication between the family and Mohamed because he does not have a telephone. “The police are also to blame, since we went to the terminal three times when we were looking for him and no one told us anything. They had him completely hidden.”
Although the family feels relieved and happy that this ordeal is over, Ahmed assures that they will take legal measures in this regard when there is a final resolution. His main motivation is to ensure that this does not happen again, and that they are worried that Mohamed el-Maadioui will be arrested again when he comes to visit them. Finally, his nephew has shown his pride in the “media pressure” that he and his family have exerted, since he believes that if it were not for them, this would have dragged on for months.
