Family Pressure and a Case of Namesake Confusion at a Spanish Airport
On February 18, 71-year-old Mohamed el-Maadioui arrived at El Prat airport on a flight from Nador to spend a week with his children who live in Mataró. He makes this trip several times a year, since retirement took him to live with part of his family in Morocco, but he always returns to the home he spent 30 years in in the Maresme capital.
However, after stepping off the plane and clearing the police checkpoint, his ordeal began. Before his passport could be stamped for entry, National Police officers halted him when they learned there was an arrest warrant issued by French authorities against Mohamed el-Maadioui, aged 71. He was wanted for extradition to France to serve a 10-year sentence for arms and drug trafficking.
Mohamed, who did not have a mobile phone and spoke only a dialect from the Moroccan region where he lives, with limited Spanish, was detained and moved to the National Court system in Madrid to be sent to France. His family in Mataró, who reported his disappearance the same day for not leaving Terminal 2, mobilized to help him.
Family Advocacy and Legal Steps
They hired a lawyer and learned that the full name and date of birth of Mohamed matched a suspect listed in France. Judges held a hearing on the extradition, and the man remained in Brians 1 prison during the process. The family filed an appeal to secure Mohamed’s release and asked the court to gather additional information from French authorities before deciding.
Ten days after the detention, a call reached the children and cousins confirming he would be freed after authorities in France and Spain cross-checked data and found a misidentification. Ahmed el-Maadioui, Mohamed’s relative, explained that his uncle was healthy but frustrated with the situation. He noted that the prison’s conditions were decent and that a cellmate who spoke the same dialect offered comfort.
A Homonym Dilemma
Mohamed shared the exact name and birth date with a criminal sought by France. The surname, common in that Moroccan region, compounded the confusion. The year of birth—coming from a tradition in Moroccan bureaucracy before the 1980s in which the default birth date was listed as January 1—meant many documents looked similar, with only the year varying.
Ahmed described the detainment as surreal from the start. The family was informed at the last minute and told to alert relatives to pick him up. The lawyer did not know the next steps, and Mohamed held only a release document, lacking a stamped passport.
As Ahmed put it, responsibility would be examined for the handling by authorities, and the family contemplated filing a formal complaint over the judicial and police misstep that kept a 71-year-old man in custody for ten days on a misattributed charge.