Originally Posted by
GUWonder
Originally Posted by
Kallio
Or they could have used their Iranian passports to exit Malayasia. I have never been there but in my experience the exit immigrations are usually only interested about the entry stamp to catch overstayers. They don't often care about boarding passes or identity you have provided to an airline.
In any case, it seems more and more that it was just a mundane case of illegal immigration. Most likely they would have been caught in Amsterdam because AFAIK Schengen countries do check passports against Interpol database, and airline would have been fined.
Most Schengen countries do
not check most passenger passports against the Interpol passport database when those passengers arrive at a Schengen port for admission into the Schegen zone.
Given these men were likely to claim asylum in Europe, getting caught with a stolen passport in Europe would not ruin that plan.
OK, they could have used their Iranian passports to exit Malaysia. I can even accept that Malaysian officers wouldn't care too much about apparent western Europeans who are exiting the country.
I knew that passports are not routinely checked against the INTERPOL database, but I found it highly unlikely that a stolen EU passport would not be flagged up by the SIS (Schengen Information System).
However, according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenge...#Border_checks, "checking the travel document against the list of stolen, misappropriated, lost and invalidated documents in the Schengen Information System and other national databases" is "optional", even for a "thorough" check!!
Nonetheless, assuming that AMS does check against the Italian and Austrian lists, I wonder if they mistakenly thought that there would be no passport control while transiting AMS. Surely if they discarded the stolen passports and claimed asylum when entering without a visa, asylum would need to be processed in the Netherlands - thus thwarting the plan for family reunification +/- valid asylum claim in Germany, for one of them at least.
Originally Posted by
GUWonder
About the age thing, some parent-adult child pairs pass off as siblings in age. Not that it is a given in this circumstance, but it wouldn't be the first time a thin, healthy lifestyle Iranian in his upper 50s or lower 60s was able to pass as someone in or close to the 30s age group. Not common, but possible. And some Iranians are perceived as ethnic "Italian" or "Slovenian" but have children who are perceived as something different -- like "Indian" or "Dominican" or "Middle Eastern". Welcome to a cosmopolitan world with a long history of international migration and what it has meant for human reproduction and genetic diversity within the species and even within given national groups within our species.
I didn't say anything about perceived ethnicity. Iranians and "native" southern Europeans often look similar anyway. I just thought it would be hard for a 20-year-old to disguise himself as a 61-year-old (albeit with a passport photo taken at the age of perhaps 53). However, if
this disguise can get you on a plane, I suppose anything can.