During one of my many recent visits to the prison hospital, I got talking to another inmate from death row, building two. It is common here for prisoners to ask about each others situations. Their cases, length of sentence, appeals etc. after all it is probably the only thing we are all sure to have in common. Whilst waiting to see the Quack and chatting as I do I learnt that this chap had been sentenced to death in the first court after losing his trial on drugs charges. Further conversation revealed that he was presently waiting to take his case to the appeal court. He was convinced that in the ‘second’ court he would be exonerated and freed after new evidence had surfaced that would categorically prove him an innocent party in the ‘alleged offence’. He had, he patiently explained, been ‘set up’ by the police and together with the complicity of the prosecutor and judges been relieved of a very large sum of money, earned through legitimate business. This is a story I’ve heard over and over in different forms from prisoners here and in which in this case, as in most involving police corruption, I happened to believe. “Nothing out of the ordinary here” I thought, but the shock was yet to come. I asked him how long he had been waiting to be called back to court for his appeal to be heard?  

His answer?- an unbelievable 14 years! One four! For fourteen years this unassuming gentleman had been kept indoors, in a bare cell, sleeping on the concrete floor, given minimum ‘privileges’ and never once without shackles. That is over 5100 days and nights with his legs in steel rings joined with heavy chains, never removed….

I was astounded, speechless, shocked yet again by how a system like this one is allowed to exist. Allowed to destroy a man’s life through the greed and corruption of others? How had this rampant abuse been left to continue and an innocent man left to suffer alone for so long? But then a bigger, much more important question entered my head, one of which I dearly wish I knew the answer. Where did this gentleman find the courage and hope to carry on? To face another day in this hell?

If you know the answer to that one, please let me know.