Court Says Living Man Has to Stay 'Dead'

A Romanian court has rejected a man's claim that he's alive, after he was officially registered as deceased. A court spokeswoman said Friday that 63-year-old Constantin Reliu lost his case in the northeast city of Vaslui because he appealed too late. The ruling is final, the AP reports. This all started when Reliu went to Turkey in 1992 for work and lost contact with his Romanian family. Hearing no news from her husband, his wife managed to get a death certificate for him in 2016. Turkish authorities located Reliu this year with expired papers and deported him. When he arrived in Romania, he discovered he'd been declared dead. And it looks like he's in a bit of a bind. "I am officially dead, although I'm alive," he says. "I have no income, and because I am listed dead, I can't do anything." (This American vet can relate.)