How they made me an alien

• Prize
• Photographer
  Lee-Marie Sadek, France

Ahmed Abdulahi Guelleh is a somalian fisherman who was accused of piracy against the french ship “Carré d’As”. In 2008 he was jailed for 3 years in France before being acquitted.
Now that he's been released until his second trial without the permission to return to his homeland, he found himself a stranger in a strange land ; not able to speak or understand the language, with neither papers nor money.
When i heard the story of this man and after that i met him, it was clear to me that my cover story will take a kafkaesque direction. This is the story of someone who is held and lost in a society that is completly “stranger” to him.
Through that work i had no intention to show his innocence or denounce an injustice system, but to build an intimate portrait of a man facing a new turn in his life ; a condition he is forced to deal with.
In the first diptych there’s a photo that shows at first sight a white hat and a white paper out of blackness. Then we can see someone under this hat holding that piece of paper while contemplating the number written on it. This photo symbolise effectively the situation of a man whose existence is from now on conditioned by his own case.
On the first of february 2013, the court of appeal in Melun declared Ahmed Abdulahi Guelleh innocent for the second and final time.

• Awards
  2012 - 9 Honorable Mentions at the IPA. 2011 - 1 Honorable Mention at the IPA. 2010 - 1 Honorable Mention at PhotoInduced "Let's Do Lunch". 2008 - 1 Honorable Mention at the IPA.