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Zahir Belounis Speaks out After Release from Qatar
Published: December 4, 2013
According to the French-Algerian striker, who had been denied an exit visa from his club, El Jaish SC, he had planned an illegal escape from the country and even considered suicide not long before he was granted his release.
He talked about the nightmarish ordeal with BBC's Ben Smith:
"What nobody knows was that I prepared an escape," he says. "I will not say how I was going to do it, because I don't want to give bad ideas to some people. But I had taken that decision. I had no chance. I said 'I will be home before Christmas'. That was the choice I made."
When asked about the moments he considered suicide, he finds it hard to explain how and why he reached rock bottom. "My brother and friends will tell you I am a strong man," he says.
"But after this fight I had no choice. The only I way I was able to stop doing something bad to myself was to drink. Alcohol was a help to me, I thought about something else until the morning. It was the only way I had."
For the uninitiated, Belounis made his debut for El Jaish in 2010, but after he took legal action against his club for failing to pay salary, he became a captive of Qatar.
That's because, as Smith explains, in the Western Asian country, every foreign worker is bound to his or her employer. In what is known as the Kafala system, workers are not allowed to leave their jobs or the country without permission.
When Belounis took his club to court for the failure to pay his wages, they refused to grant him an exit visa.
Fortunately, for the 33-year-old who had seemingly hit rock bottom in an impossibly unfair situation, this story has a happy ending.
On Wednesday, his brother tweeted the good news:
Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated shared this image of Belo...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football
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