Abdalmasih, the main suspect arrested after the stabbing of several children in Annecy would be, according to a source close to the file in Le Figaro, a Syrian refugee in his thirties. In November 2022, he had submitted an asylum application to Ofpra, the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, which was refused. Was its presence on French territory irregular?
It seems not, according to the same source, the man had obtained, prior to his asylum application in France, refugee status in Sweden, where he had resided since 2013. Abdalmasih had a wife in Sweden, and a three-year-old child.
" READ ALSO Father of a child, married, refugee in Sweden... Who is the Syrian arrested in Annecy?
As soon as a country in the Schengen area grants protection to a refugee, the refugee is then allowed to travel to all Schengen countries (those of the European Union, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) for stays of less than three months, without a visa. It is sufficient to present the "refugee travel document" (TVR) or "travel protection document" issued by the authorities of the country that granted him asylum or subsidiary protection. However, it is necessary to obtain a visa from the host country for a stay of more than three months.
It was because Abdalmasih had already been granted refugee status in Sweden that his application for asylum in France was declared moot. Immigration lawyer Philippe Fontana is surprised, however, that his application has been examined by OFPRA. It recalls that the Dublin Protocol, which governs asylum applications within the European Union, provides that such applications may be submitted in only one country, the country through which they entered European territory. This scheme seeks to prevent asylum-seekers from filing an application in several countries at the same time, or trying to choose the country in which they lodge an application. "Normally, when he went to the one-stop shop at the prefecture, the services should have found that he already had asylum in Sweden since his fingerprints are recorded in the Eurodac file, and they could not even redirect him to OFPRA," says Philippe Fontana about the suspect.
As a result of the war in Syria, applications for asylum or subsidiary protection from Syrian nationals are mostly accepted by the authorities of the various countries of the European Union.
