I would not be informed of my transfer date until the day before it happened. This had been driving me mad. It seemed to me that every time I called the British embassy to enquire when I might be going home, they would say, ‘Oh, in a couple of months.’ It felt as if my transfer date was getting further and further away. Christ, I had nearly served my entire sentence already and they had awarded me an extremely generous ten per cent off my sentence for not behaving well! This meant I had to serve just under 11 years in total.
I’d been told that the presidential pardon I had applied for in respect of the $8,000 fine could take years to be granted. I didn’t want to spend $8,000 plus another $2,000 in airfare just to go back to prison in Britain for God knows how long.
The tragic and brutal death of Simon, and the death of another British prisoner under very similar circumstances, had quite rightly caused a scandal. British prisoners being targeted and killed was not acceptable when the Ecuadorian government had a duty of care. The embassy was also aware of the poor conditions and lack of food.
The Ministry of Justice had promised to speed up the process of repatriation but refused to back down on the issue of the fines, which was one of the main reasons a lot of people couldn’t go through with it. In Simon’s case the fine had been over $80,000. An incredible amount. That was the highest I’d heard of. The average was a couple of thousand dollars, with the Spaniards receiving the lowest, often just a couple of hundred. The money raised from the fines was supposedly used to fight and prevent drug trafficking in Ecuador.
I had kept refusing to let my family pay the fine as it was a lot of money and I felt terrible that they would have to pay it. I thought something would come up and I would get released, but I kept waiting and waiting all in vain. I missed out on a couple of things that might have seen me released years earlier because of technicalities and poor work on the part of lawyers. This to some extent was lucky, as had I not served very long the British police would have attempted to extradite me to Britain to be re-sentenced there. Either that, or I wouldn’t have been able to return to Britain for a very long time. In the end my stepmother paid the fine that would allow me to be released.
I arrived at the office block for my area of the prison. There stood a well-dressed Ecuadorian woman, looking rather nervous, with a walkie-talkie in her hand.
‘Are you Pieter Tritton?’ she enquired in Spanish.
‘Yes,’ I replied, wondering what the hell was going on now.
‘Right, then you are leaving to go home to Britain right now.’
‘What?’ I stammered, while my heart rose up into my throat and a ridiculous, uncontrollable grin spread across my face. ‘But I don’t have any of my things.’ I had actually sent out most of the things I wanted over the preceding weeks with Margarita to ensure they reached Britain safely. I also didn’t want to carry any phone numbers with me on the return journey because I was worried about being questioned on arrival. I was worried that if the police found these numbers it might cause problems for the people concerned. It could also have possibly caused me problems, as some of the numbers on the list belonged to very serious traffickers.
‘You are very welcome to go back and get your things if you want,’ the woman said sarcastically. She had been talking rapidly into the walkie-talkie, confirming she had me next to her and was due to deliver me any second now. I decided I would rather leave the few things I had in my cell. Probably best to leave the couple of grams of coke I had just got that morning … I felt momentarily bad for not having been able to say goodbye to all my friends, some of whom I had known since my very first days of captivity in the Interpol cells in Quito. Whenever anyone left it really felt as if they had died, as quite often that would be the last you ever heard of them. It was sometimes very emotional if a very close friend left. Part of you didn’t want them to go, however happy you were for them that they were getting out. I felt both sad and ecstatic at the same time. I was sure my friends wouldn’t begrudge me not saying goodbye.
The woman asked me to follow her to the main reception block where the offices of the director and senior prison staff were. I was ushered into a holding cell, one of three large cages. There were some twenty-five people in the holding cell, including a couple whom I knew from my years in the Peni. They greeted me warmly and made space for me on one of the plastic-covered mattresses on the floor. The woman told me I was going to have to wait a couple of hours before we left for the airport with an armed guard. She explained that I should have been taken from the wing I was housed on and brought here the night before to keep me in isolation so that I couldn’t inform anyone, in case I was preparing to escape. It also meant they would have me ready and waiting to be escorted by Interpol and the other policemen to the airport. Apparently there had been some sort of mistake and they had forgotten to collect me. I was due to leave the country at 5pm, but it was now 1pm and they hadn’t even started the process of filling out all the relevant paperwork.
The first stage was for members of the prison service to sign the permission needed to transfer me to Britain. Next, the police had to run a few checks on me, such as fingerprints, to confirm my identity. I was then thoroughly searched for weapons of any description. As we were going through this process, a group of four heavily armed police officers more akin to military personnel arrived. They were carrying M16 assault rifles and Glock handguns, and were wearing camouflage fatigues and maroon berets. These four plus another four waiting outside were to be my escort all the way to the plane.
The last people to arrive were four Ecuadorian Interpol officers in whose car I would be travelling. They searched me again and then handed me some normal civilian clothes into which I could change. Margarita had bought some navy blue trousers and a polo top, fresh new underwear, new shoes and a jumper for the flight and sent them in via the embassy. She was due to meet me at the airport along with her son Gustavo, Isabel and a few other people who had organised the transfer. It sounded as if it was going to be quite a send-off.
I was in utter shock that after the best part of a decade of constantly trying to survive I was actually going home and this nightmare would finally be over. I kept thinking any minute now I would wake up and still have another ten years to go. It was really happening – it really was!
I had been told previously by the embassy and by lawyers in both Britain and Ecuador that if I was to face further charges in Britain the police would have to, by law, notify me 24 hours before travel. It therefore appeared that I wasn’t going to face further charges upon arrival in London. I was still nervous but the pressure was starting to lift.
The plane was due to leave at 5pm and we needed to arrive at the airport with lots of time to check in. You may think you have it hard at the airport with security, but imagine the security checks I had to go through. I had to be patted down countless times and then go through a scanner to make sure I hadn’t swallowed capsules, and of course my bag was thoroughly searched.
I was so happy as we pulled away from the prison that I couldn’t stop smiling. Our small convoy headed towards the airport in Guayaquil. I was in the middle car, accompanied by the four Interpol officers, all armed, and in front of and behind us were jeeps, each carrying four armed police. As we travelled along, one of the Interpol officers turned to me and asked, ‘So don’t you like it here then?’
‘Why do you ask?’ I replied, a little confused. Although the answer was obvious it sounded like a loaded question.
‘Well you tried to escape, didn’t you?’ the Interpol officer responded knowingly, all his colleagues laughing.
‘Ah!’ I thought that this information had been long forgotten – it hadn’t. The tunnel project had come back to haunt me one last time. I had never had it confirmed that this was the reason behind my transfer seven years previously, but finally I knew the answer. They all found this very amusing. The fact that this had come up now helped to explain a few things, for example why I had been transferred from Quito to Guayaquil in t
he first place. I had paid someone a fair amount of money to supposedly have this erased while I was in the process of applying for parole. No wonder they had only awarded me ten per cent remission off my sentence.
‘So you won’t be coming back any time soon then?’
‘I can’t, as you well know. But I will in the future as I have business I want to conduct between here and Britain.’
They all looked at one another and laughed again. They didn’t realise I was serious. Just not drugs next time.
At the airport they cordoned off an area of the car park and surrounded me with armed police to prevent me from doing a runner. I wasn’t allowed to get out of the car. It was only when Margarita, Gustavo, Isabel, Tanner and a few others turned up that they finally gave in and let me have various photos taken alongside my friends. Members of the public wandering by were peering over at us to see what all the fuss was about. I was dressed in reasonably smart, brand-new clothes and they had removed the handcuffs as we were surrounded by heavily armed police. It probably looked as if we were some important dignitaries.
We were travelling economy class on a commercial passenger airline. I hadn’t yet been told the route we were taking. There are no direct flights to England so I knew we would likely be travelling through North America, Spain or Holland, these being the most commonly used routes. I had for a while planned in my mind the possibility of escape if I had thought there was any chance of my being re-sentenced upon arrival in London. I couldn’t face another long sentence. I knew that we would have to get off the plane for a stopover at some point, so I’d thought I might be able to slip some crushed-up sleeping tablets into the drinks of the guards accompanying me. They were bound to have some coffee or tea when we stopped. The plan was to then take my passport, which one of them would be carrying, and disappear off out of the airport somehow. I had gone so far as to acquire the necessary tablets and had them crushed up ready. It was lucky I was taken without warning, as they would almost certainly have discovered them when I was searched.
An hour or so had passed when the three British prison officers from Wandsworth arrived in the airport car park and introduced themselves. They had the typical look of prison guards about them – short hair, strong but rather fat, smartly dressed. They seemed quite surprised by the level of security around me and the amount of serious hardware the police had on display. They looked rather underdressed for the occasion, with just a pair of handcuffs, compared to the others’ M16 assault rifles and Glock handguns.
I had a brief chat with them about my sentence, what I had done and how the prisons compared with the ones in Britain. They had been in Ecuador since the Monday of that week and it was now Thursday. True to form and Ecuadorian efficiency, some of the paperwork hadn’t been completed when they arrived, so I couldn’t be released into their custody. This had meant we missed the first airline booking, which was due to go through the USA. They had to buy new tickets, passing through Madrid on Avianca and then swapping to BA.
I said my goodbyes to Margarita and Isabel, who had become very dear to me. I view Margarita as a second mother and Isabel as a third! Without the pair of them and all their help I would almost certainly have ended up dead. They looked after me as if I was their child, with such love and care. They are two of the most incredible women I have ever met and it broke my heart bidding them farewell after all those years. We were all quite tearful.
I had jokingly written out a list of things I wanted them to buy me for the journey: fruit, chocolate and all manner of other food and drink. Of course it was all denied. Rocío did manage to bring me a chocolate brownie and a hot chocolate, which tasted divine after so long in the last prison without anything decent to eat. The craving for something sweet is incredibly strong when you can’t satisfy it.
Members of the press and a human rights group were at the airport in order to make sure I left the country in one piece. I was handcuffed before walking through the airport, at gunpoint and surrounded by the police. It was quite a spectacle, with women pulling young children out of the way and people pausing to take photos. I was experiencing culture shock. Everything appeared shiny and glowing with colour. Everyone either seemed to have a phone glued to their ear or was staring at one. Everyone looked smart and well-presented and it all felt really fast. I thought, if I’m feeling in shock here, I can’t imagine what London will be like.
We proceeded further on into the depths of the airport, being ushered past worried-looking officials and members of the airport security. A couple of Human Rights Watch workers were busy snapping photos at every stage in order to show the world how well Ecuador treats its prisoners and so that, should I arrive in bits, they would have proof they weren’t responsible. Also in tow was a journalist documenting my journey. Prior to the security checks and searches the British prison officers officially took charge of me. All three of them then posed beside me for a photo, with one of the policemen dressed in military fatigues complete with beret and M16 assault rifle. One for the scrapbook and to show the grandchildren!
Next we had all our bags searched, at which point I was ushered into a room with a high-tech scanner and X-ray. One of the customs officers asked me if I had swallowed any capsules of cocaine and assured me that if I had I would be going directly back to the prison to begin a fresh 12-year sentence. A few people in the prison had tried to talk me into swallowing capsules prior to leaving, insisting that I wouldn’t be searched as I had just come from prison. There was no way in hell I was doing that. I never had and never would ask anyone to do so for me, as it is inherently dangerous and just not worth the risk. After nine years I just wanted to go home. I didn’t want to spend a single minute more in a South American prison.
They took their time examining the scanner and X-ray results, scrutinising every last centimetre of my intestines and colon. Good luck to them! It reminded me of some of the men I had seen in Quito with fresh red scars running the entire length of their abdomens where they had had the capsule extracted on the operating table in order to ‘save them’. Their scars resembled the sewing I had seen on the mailbags in the prison workshops in Britain. Frankenstein’s monster looked better.
We then passed through into the departure lounge and found some seats next to the gate. The armed police had left now and the only ones who remained were the Ecuadorian Interpol officers who were tasked with seeing me all the way on to the plane to make absolutely sure I was no longer a problem for their government. They reminded me that I was banned from returning to Ecuador for the next five years.
I was now left with just the three British prison officers and a couple of Ecuadorian Interpol officers. I sat quietly for a while, collecting my thoughts. Then I noticed, directly in front of us, a chocolate shop. The brownie and hot chocolate Margarita had given me earlies had reminded me of my love for chocolate and Ecuadorian chocolate is some of the best in the world, so I persuaded one of the guards to accompany me into the shop. I walked out the proud owner of my first bar of chocolate since I’d gone to prison, and God it tasted good.
We had to wait until everyone else had boarded and then we took our places in the last two rows of the middle section, reserved for us. I had a prison officer each side of me and the third was seated behind. It still felt unreal. As we taxied along the runway I was smiling from ear to ear, and when we finally took off I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I was away! I had done it! I had survived nine years in one of the most dangerous prisons on the planet. People had tried to kill me, I had seen people killed every which way, torture carried out, gunfights, grenade attacks, machete fights, riots. Some of my close family had died while I was away, and lots of friends. I was changed, but alive.
We rose up into the stratosphere and sped across the Atlantic towards Spain and Britain. That chapter of my life had closed. I drifted into one of those all-encompassing deep sleeps you only experience after severe trauma and prolonged periods of intense stress. I was safe, perhaps for the first time in a decade.
HMP WANDSWORTH
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY SAID: ‘The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.’ He should know. He did four years’ hard labour in Siberia.
I awoke somewhere over Portugal, rather disorientated and achy from being squashed between the two large prison officers. One of them was asleep and the other reading a magazine. I asked him how much longer to go and he told me it would be about an hour until we touched down in Madrid. We had to wait a couple of hours in the Spanish capital before our flight left for London. If there was going to be any chance of escape then that would be the most likely time I could attempt it.
During the flight I had been quizzing the guard who seemed to be in charge of our little group as to whether or not there was any mention of an active arrest warrant with my name on it. He told me that he had not seen or heard anything about further charges or pending cases back in Britain, which came as a huge relief. Although I had been told that they would have had to notify me before we even got on the plane in Ecuador if I was going to be arrested upon arrival in England, I wouldn’t fully relax until at least a couple of weeks had passed back home. For nine years I had wondered almost daily whether or not I was going to be charged on my return to Britain with the alleged offences in connection to the case in England and Scotland. It seemed that I would very soon be able to put that out of my mind and start planning the rest of my life.
We landed in a sunny Madrid late in the afternoon of 14 November 2014. The plane emptied and we were the last to disembark. It felt fantastic to finally step on to European ground. I couldn’t stop grinning. I was led, handcuffed to one of the guards, to a waiting area located in what appeared to be the airport police or customs offices. There were a couple of holding cells and various interview rooms. A few people were brought in, handcuffed and accompanied by the police officers who had just detained them. I wondered whether any of them had just been arrested for drug trafficking. There was I on the way home, having nearly finished my sentence for drug trafficking, and here were these people possibly about to start a period of detention for the same reason. This business will never cease. There will always be people willing to risk their liberty smuggling drugs unless they are legalised.
El Infierno Page 26