My name is Omar Abidi. I am 27 years old, from Algeria. I am the person that you read about in the news 1 year and a half ago. I stole a car and kidnap one old man.
First, I’m sorry because I write in English, I cannot write in Slovenian language.
Now that I finished with my prison, I want to tell to all Slovenian people why I made this problem.
I tried many times to reach Slovenia, one time I actually reached it, but they pushed me back. And Croatian police, they pushed me back to Bosnia nine times. Every time they treated me like I’m an animal. They took my clothes of, they hit me really hard and they broke my phone. Nine times.
This time we were three people who came from Bosnia together, we were walking in the mountains and through the forest for five days. In these five days, we were in a really bad situation. For three days, it was raining and we finished all our food and one friend got ill and he could barely walk. We were under a big stress and we didn’t know what to do. When we finally reached Slovenia, we saw one car and one old man next to the car. We were under stress and we were just thinking how we can get away from the border as fast as possible so they don’t send us back again into the hands of Croatian police. We asked this man if he could drive us to Asylum home in Ljubljana, where we can ask for asylum. We offered him 60 eur. He said no, because he doesn’t want to have problems with police. So we decided we will take this car anyway, we were really in a panic. But then we thought, maybe it’s not good to leave this man here alone, what if something happens to him, maybe he will not be able to reach his home alone without a car. If something happens to him, it would be a big problem for him and for us. That’s why we decided to take him with us, so he can take his car back home, when we reach Ljubljana. We told him to go into the trunk. I think he was afraid, because he didn’t object. I swear we didn’t hurt him.
Before we reached Ljubljana, maybe 20 km before, we made a stop, and we realised we brought a big problem to ourselves. Really, we couldn’t see it clearly before, because we were under such a big stress. We thought it’s maybe not smart to stop in Ljubljana. We continued to Italy and a bit before the border, we stopped the car and we gave the car back to the old man and we gave him keys and we told him we are really sorry. After this, we were caught by police and put to prison. I tried to reach that man to apologise to him again, but I couldn’t.
So, I want to say now, to him and to all Slovenian people, we are sorry for this crime, really we were in bad situation and stupid state of mind because of the stress. And I just want to explain, why we did it. I want to speak with some news or journalist to explain the whole story.
And I wanted to say that after I finished my prison sentence of 1 year and 5 months, I was put in Postojna detention center. It’s really starting to affect my mental health. I’m worried too much. Back home, I have a mother and three small brothers. I’m the oldest son, so it’s my responsibility to take care for them. But since I left home, there has been nothing but problems for me. First, I spent many months living on the streets of Bosnia, then I was nine times in the hands of brutal Croatian police and since I came to Slovenia, I didn’t see a day of sun outside of prison. I’m not a criminal. I just escaped from the problems of my country. And I just want to live like a normal person and make money for my mother and my brothers. So far, I didn’t have a chance to fulfil my duty to them.