For decades, Sir Mo Farah has lived in Britain and kept quiet about his original identity. Now the running star is clearing up his life lie. He doesn't have to fear consequences. However, the police are examining the couple he accuses.
London police are investigating the case after running star Sir Mo Farah revealed he had kept his true identity a secret for decades. It involves the allegation that he was trafficked after his mother gave him away to escape the civil war in his native Somalia.
A police spokesman said: "We are aware of the reports in the media about Sir Mo Farah. Nothing has been reported to the MPS at this time." Specialized officials have launched an investigation and "evaluate the available information," the investigating authority continued.
The 39-year-old does not have to fear any consequences from Great Britain. "No action will be taken against Sir Mo and it is wrong to suggest otherwise," a Home Office spokesman said. The country for which he was so successful internationally stands by him. That makes Farah happy: "I'm relieved: this is my country," he told BBC radio. "No kid wants to be in that situation. That decision was made for me. And I'm just grateful for every opportunity I got in the UK and proud to represent my country the way I did because that was everything I could do that was in my power. When I was younger, I had no control."
He has won 25 medals at the Olympic Games, World and European Championships, unforgettable is the double-double when he won gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters both at the Olympic Games in 2012 and four years later. The Queen knighted him for it in 2017, since then he has been allowed to bear the title "Sir".
For decades he had said he had come to Britain as a refugee with his mother and two of his brothers from Somalia. The country where his father, an IT consultant, had previously worked. The running hero even published a biography, which also contains this false representation of reality. Because in a recently released BBC documentary, Farah admitted that his original name was Hussein Abdi Kahin: "Most people know me as Mo Farah, but that's not my name, that's not reality."
His father never lived in Britain but was killed in Somalia's civil war when Farah was four years old. He was illegally smuggled into Britain under the alias "Mohamed Farah" when he was eight or nine years old. In a family in slave-like conditions, he took care of even younger children and had to cook and clean "to get anything to eat at all". A woman tore up a document with the contact information of his relatives before his eyes. He was told he would never see his family again if he told the truth. The London police will now probably question the couple, reports the "Daily Telegraph".
Farah confided in his physical education teacher at the time, Alan Watkinson, and told him about the catastrophic situation in which he lived. "I don't think Alan did anything wrong there," Farah told BBC radio. "Alan contacted social services," who placed him with another family, allowing Farah to escape his life as a servant. In 2000 the time had come: With the help of Watkinson, Farah received British citizenship, with the name he was given when he was smuggled into Great Britain. The connection to his sports teacher, who first helped him to settle in at school and later did so much more, lasted: in 2010 he was even Farah's best man at his wedding to his wife Tania Nell.
Farah is now going public with the truth because he has the encouragement of his wife and children. "Family means everything to me and as a parent you always teach your children to be honest, but I always felt like I was never able to be myself and say what really happened," he told the BBC. "I kept it to myself for so long that it was difficult because you didn't want to admit it, and my kids often say, 'Dad, how come?' And you always have an answer for everything, but you don't have an answer for that."
Incidentally, the threat from the family Farah lived with did not come true: the running star is in regular contact with his mother Aisha and his siblings in Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia.
