By STEPHEN COOK
The wife of Iranian overstayer Saied Ghanbari has issued an emotional plea on behalf of her exiled husband, saying, "He loves me and just wants to come home".
Ghanbari was expelled from New Zealand on August 7 after eluding authorities for 18 months.
He had lived in New Zealand for
eight years, but went on the run after exhausting all options to stay here. He surrendered himself to immigration officials on June 23.
Now details have emerged of the cost of removing him, along with the reasons the Immigration Service insisted that Ghanbari have four escorts, including three police staff, for a nine-hour flight from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur, from where he flew unaccompanied to Tehran.
The Immigration Service said this week that the cost of expelling the Iranian was close to $20,000, which included $12,000 for tickets for Ghanbari and his three police escorts and up to $4000 for a medical escort.
Spokeswoman Kathryn O'Sullivan said Ghanbari required a medical escort because he had written a suicide note to his wife and had told immigration staff he would not leave New Zealand alive.
"Mr Ghanbari was clearly a reluctant passenger who displayed serious suicidal tendencies and needed a medical escort," Mrs O'Sullivan said.
The decision to use three police escorts followed concerns about Ghanbari's "aggressive tendencies".
The Immigration Service, police and the airline believed he might pose a danger to other passengers and assigned him the four escorts.
