This Moroccan Man Hides His Papers in Turkey to Avoid Deportation, but Loses His Asylum in the Netherlands
A Moroccan man admitted that he had deliberately left his passport and identity card in Turkey in order to avoid possible deportation. The Dutch courts partially upheld his case regarding the procedure, but ultimately maintained the rejection of his asylum application and its consequences.
The District Court of The Hague, sitting in Groningen, issued its decision on Monday, September 7. The Moroccan man had applied for asylum in the Netherlands on September 23, 2025. His application had been rejected as manifestly unfounded on March 5, 2026, and accompanied by a two-year entry ban, according to the decision published on Rechtspraak.nl.
His journey through Europe weighed heavily in the examination of his case. After leaving Morocco in 2021 or 2022, he said he had spent three months in Turkey before successively crossing Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Ireland, France, Belgium and Germany.
He had applied for asylum in Bulgaria as early as March 2022, then in Austria and Ireland. A new application had been registered in Germany in October 2024. In March 2025, the German authorities had transferred him to Ireland.
On Bladi.net : article 123158
In the Netherlands, the administration considered his Moroccan nationality and origin credible, but not his identity. The reasons included several different identities used in Germany and, above all, the absence of Moroccan documents.
The applicant himself had explained that he had deliberately left his Moroccan passport and identity card in Turkey. He had also stated that he did not want them sent to the Netherlands because he did not want to be deported.
Documents Left in Turkey to Avoid Deportation
Before the court, the Moroccan man claimed to have tried to contact the people with whom his documents had remained. However, he provided no evidence to support these efforts.
In the judge’s view, the administration could therefore criticize him for not having genuinely sought to establish his identity. Between his departure from Turkey and his arrival in the Netherlands, he could also have requested new documents from the Moroccan authorities.
His conduct during the various European proceedings also counted against him. In particular, he had disappeared for a period in the Netherlands and had failed to attend two summonses as part of the Dublin procedure.
The man also claimed to fear a gang of drug traffickers in Morocco. The administration identified several inconsistencies in his account, particularly concerning the chronology of a theft that allegedly had caused his problems with the group.
The court held that these contradictions could legitimately have led the authorities not to believe his account.
Another Moroccan man had recently obtained the annulment of the refusal of his asylum application in the Netherlands while still being required to return to Morocco. In this new case, the court reaches a fairly similar conclusion.
The judge did, in fact, rule in the applicant’s favor on a legal point: the decision of March 5 had not provided sufficient reasoning regarding the way in which the administration had assessed the overall credibility of the grounds for his asylum application. The court therefore formally annulled that decision.
But this victory has no practical effect. The judge decided to maintain the legal consequences of the annulled decision, considering that the administration had nevertheless provided sufficient elements to justify rejecting the asylum application.
On Bladi.net : article 123219
The asylum refusal therefore remains in force, as do the consequences of the initial decision, including the two-year entry ban. The Moroccan man will nevertheless be reimbursed for his legal costs: the Dutch state will have to pay him 1,868 euros.
