Mistaken Identity: Amb. Slaa firm that Mustafa Mohamed, Somali immigrant in Norway is not Tanzanian

Moshi. Tanzania’s ambassador to Sweden, Dr Wilibrod Slaa, said yesterday that his country’s position over a Somali refugee, Mr Mustafa Mohamed, who is exiled in Norway, has not changed.

Mr Mohamed is alleged to have lived in Norway for 24 years on a mistaken identity that he was a Tanzanian while in fact, he is Somali.

Dr Slaa, who is also Tanzania’s representative in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Estonia, told The Citizen from Sweden yesterday that Tanzania’s position remains that Mr Mohamed is a Somali and that any attempt to deport him to Tanzania would not be accepted.

“Our position over that matter has not changed since 2009. He is not a Tanzanian,” he said.

Dr Slaa was responding to a March 15, 2018 letter that was written by Mohamed’s lawyer, Erlend Liaklev Anderson, requesting whether or not Tanzania’s position over the matter has since changed.

Erlend Liaklev Anderson told The Citizen yesterday that police in Norway was now receiving all the necessary cooperation with Tanzanian authorities that would culminate into forceful deportation of Mr Mohamed to Tanzania.

The letter – a copy of which was availed to The Citizen – was also copied to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and to the Commissioner General for the Immigration Department.

But Dr Slaa said the embassy was not involved in the alleged discussions and that should Norway decide to deport Mohamed to Tanzania, he would be returned to the European nation on the same day.

“Our position has not changed. Our embassy has not been involved in the alleged negotiations. In any case, should they decide to send him to Tanzania, he will be brought back via the same airplane that carried him there,” he said.

Immigration spokesman Alli Mtanda shared Dr Slaa’s sentiments and asked The Citizen to contact the Home Affairs permanent secretary for further details.

Efforts to reach the permanent secretary of Home Affairs, Major General Jacob Kingu yielded no fruit but the Home Affairs Minister Kangi Lugola promised to work on the matter.

In 2009, Mr Mohamed, who is also known as Abdulrahman Ismail Yusuph, was forcibly brought to Tanzania – via Dar es Salaam’s Julius Nyerere International Airport - under the escort of Norway Police.

That forced the Immigration Department to conduct a thorough analysis of Mohamed’s roots and established that the man was not a Tanzanian.

He was thus returned to Norway.

In its letter dated November 9, 2009, bearing reference number: IMM/HQTS/IR/65/09/53 and addressed to the Norway Embassy in Tanzania, the Immigration Department said it was convinced that Mohamed was not a Tanzanian.

And yesterday, Mohamed (Abdulrahman) told The Citizen that he is a Somali and that he does not have any relative in Tanzania.

“I am a Somali. My lawyer has written to Tanzanian authorities to see if they have changed their position over my citizenship because police here are repeatedly telling me to get prepared for a forced repatriation to Tanzania,” he said.