Khawam said that what happened is “a violation of human rights and a violation of international conventions that regulate the matter.”
The prelate specified that this “is a great insult to the universal Church and the Church of Mexico in particular [in the legal capacity that he represents as apostolic administrator]” since he “was in his official clerical dress with the cross.”
In the statement, the Catholic bishop also charged that the authorities at the airport refused “to see all the documents and credentials that he carried and that accredited his legal identity as apostolic administrator in the Mexican Catholic Church.”
Khawam arrived in Mexico among other reasons to participate in the plenary assembly of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference that is being held from April 8–12.
The prelate, the statement noted, requested on several occasions that the authorities contact the apostolic nunciature in Mexico or Father Alfonso Serna, legal representative of the Meltkite Eparchy in Mexico, who was expecting him, “but the response to his request was rejected several times.”
The apostolic administrator of the Melkite Church in Mexico urged authorities to “provide a general explanation for this strange and reprehensible incident” and compensate him for the harm he suffered.