Mahad Mahamud will not leave Norway after all

Mahad Mahamud lost the case of citizenship. Attorney General Elise Nygård has brought the case before court.Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB scanpixMahad Mahamud lost the case of citizenship. Attorney General Elise Nygård has brought the case before court.Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB scanpix

Mahad Mahamud will not leave Norway after all

The Norwegian authorities now accept that Mahad Abib Mahamud travels to Somalia, as he has been working for a long time, but now Mahamud does not want to travel after all.

 

Mahamud says to Klassekampen that he chooses to stay in Norway.

– I will not travel until I get my claims fulfilled, he says.

Directorate of Immigration (UDI) and the police have denied Mahamud attempts to be returned by the police to Somalia on the grounds that he is not Somali. Therefore,  he sought assisted voluntary return to Somalia, something UDI said agreed to. In the application for assisted return, Mahamud demanded that he receive the pension points he has earned in Norway and that the entry ban to Schengen is lifted. The Norwegian authorities say no to that. Thus, he remains in Norway.

Deprived of citizenship

The Immigration and Oslo District Court have concluded that Mahad A. Mahamud is from Djibouti and lied when he applied for asylum and stated that he is from Somalia. Thus, the 30-year-old was deprived of his Norwegian citizenship, and in practice he has been stateless since last year. Nevertheless, UDI said yes to assisted voluntary return to Somalia.

– According to our rules, we can provide assisted return to a non-citizen country; therefore we think this is a good solution, Katinka Hartmann, head of the UDI, told TV 2 Sunday.

Entry ban

Mahamud is expelled from Schengen with a permanent entry ban. This means that if he travels to Somalia now he will never be able to return to Norway or any other Schengen country.

– If he chooses to leave now, the case is considered closed by the Norwegian authorities, Hartmann told TV 2.

The verdict from Oslo District Court is appealed, and the appeal case will be dealt with in the court of appeal on October 25, 2018.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today