Syrian refugee, tripped by journalist, ‘sad but hopeful’

GETAFE, Spain: Over a year after arriving in Spain, the Syrian refugee who made headlines when a Hungarian journalist tripped him up as he fled police is still waiting for his wife and daughter to join him from Turkey.

His poor Spanish has meant Osamah Alabed Almohsen, who was a first division football coach in Syria, has been suspended from his job with a football school.

And he is now considering leaving Spain.

Camerawoman Petra Laszlo sparked global outrage after television footage in September 2015 showed her tripping up a man -- later identified as Almohsen -- sprinting with a child in his arms, and kicking another running child near the Hungarian border with Serbia.

A Hungarian court last week sentenced her to three years’ probation for disorderly conduct.

The judge rejected her lawyer’s argument that she was merely trying to protect herself.

Almohsen declined to discuss the incident in an interview with AFP except to say he has “forgotten” Laszlo, who said she has been subjected to a “hate campaign” since the footage emerged.

“I need to look out for the future of me and my family, I don’t have time to think about this journalist,” he said in halting Spanish in the living room of his two-bedroom flat in Getafe, a city on the outskirts of Madrid.

“I feel sad, but hopeful,” the bearded and grey-haired 52-year-old said.

“I have three of my sons with me but the youngest needs his mother,” said Almohsen in a reference to nine-year-old Zeid, whom he was carrying when he was tripped.