Merlo was taken into the Mexican Migrations Department, where he claims was interrogated three times by SIDE agents. The last time they interrogated him, they asked if he was Gorriarán Merlo, he answered back ""yes"", and simultaneously asked for asylum. ("Mexico has a tradition for giving asylum to politically prosecuted people in other Latin American countries"). One of the Mexican police man told them that there was ""receptiveness"" about his request, but at five in the morning, Mexican authorities took him to the airport and put in him in SIDE's plane, where the same SIDE agent from Tepoztlán and the interrogation was present.