Croatian government criticises article claiming investigator dodged its officials on his way to Paris – and produces a scan that it says they took of his passport

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A Sun story claiming its reporter managed to smuggle himself undetected from Turkey to France contained false claims, according to the Croatian government, which produced a picture of the passport it said he was asked to present at its borders.

The newspaper said its reporter, Emile Ghessen, had managed to evade all security checks during a six-day, 2,000-mile journey along a refugee trail from Turkey into western Europe.

The Croatian interior ministry said that the reporter’s documents had been checked twice by its officials – once when he entered Croatia and a second time when he left. Issuing a denial on Saturday, it said the Sun’s story contained “false and malicious allegations”.

Ghessen, a former Royal Marine, claimed to have managed to cross from Turkey to Greece with the help of people smugglers while posing as an Iranian. He said he then travelled through the Balkan states – including Croatia – and then on to Germany, via Austria.



And he said his journey ended in Paris, where he visited the Bataclan concert hall – the scene of the most deadly of the terror attacks that hit the French capital last month.

The paper said its “damning report”, which ran over a two-page spread on Saturday with the headline “Six days to terror”, revealed “how Europe is still wide open to danger”. It featured pictures of Ghessen at various points on his journey, including in Turkey, Greece, Serbia and France.

The story has been taken down from the Sun’s website but a tweet promoting it was still live on Monday.

The Sun (@TheSun) Sun investigator manages to smuggle himself to Paris without a passport https://t.co/oe2Tf96Zdd pic.twitter.com/yZRfMqiwcg

The article read: “In a damning exposure of Europe’s lax borders, Emile Ghessen, 34, paid smugglers to get to Greece by boat before travelling up the continent.

“It is a similar journey to Paris suicide bombers Ahmad al Mohammad and M al Mahmod who passed most borders without checks before blowing themselves up at the Stade de France just over a month later.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Sun’s spread claiming an investigator was smuggled through Europe without a passport

And it quoted the Labour MP Simon Danczuk as saying that the story was “very worrying”.

But the Croatian government’s denial cast doubt on the Sun’s claims.



“In fact, they are false and inaccurate claims because the Croatian border police recorded Emile Pierre Ghessena,” it said in a statement published online on Saturday.

While the spelling of Ghessen was different in the statement, the spelling on the image of the passport matched that used in the Sun and on documents filed with Companies House – as did the date of birth. The picture also appeared to be of the same man featured in the Sun’s story.

The Croatian authorities said they checked Ghessen’s passport at Tovarnik, on the border with Serbia, on 23 November and then again at Pleso airport, near the capital Zagreb, a day later.

In the story, the Sun claims that Ghessen travelled through Croatia to Zagreb by train, where he spent the night in a hostel. It said he then took a “series of trains” to France, beginning with one “to Munich through Slovenia and Austria where there are no passport checks”. It makes no mention of a flight.

The Croatian interior ministry said the story was “harmful not only to the reputation of the Croatian police, but also the Republic of Croatia”.

Interior minister Ranko Ostojić wrote on Facebook that he was glad that the police had caught “liars”, who he referred to as “so-called professional journalists”.

A spokesman for the Sun said: “The Sun is currently investigating concerns that have been raised about this story.

“The journalist concerned is not a member of the Sun’s staff but a freelance documentary maker, whose work has been used by national broadcasters, newspapers and websites.”