Extradited

by Andrew Symeou

  My parents had brought me a sheet and towel, so it was an incredible feeling knowing that I could finally have a shower after four days in the heat. My dad called Riya on his mobile and passed the phone to me through the bars. I could hardly hold the phone because I was shaking so much. ‘Just stay strong,’ I remember her saying softly.

  There was no toilet in the cell, so when I needed to go I’d have to stretch my arms through the bars and wave frantically at a camera in the hallway. Eventually, one of the officers would acknowledge the live feed on a screen in the office and come to let me go. Sometimes I would be waving at the camera for over an hour – and I knew that they were just sitting there drinking coffee and smoking. I could hear them only metres away, laughing and completely ignoring me! There was one time in particular when I’d been waving at the camera for at least an hour. I was absolutely desperate to go to the toilet. I began to shout at the top of my voice, ‘Kyrie Astynome! Kyrie Astynome! Toualeta! – Toilet!’ I could hear one of the officers laughing with his friends in his office, so he must have been able to hear me. After a while, a few of the men in the neighbouring cell started to shout too, saying things like, ‘Ade, gamimeno! Afiste to paidi na paei stin toualeta! – Come on, fucking hell! Let the kid go to the toilet!’

  The officer walked into the hallway of the jail, still sniggering about something that his friend had just said. As he approached the cell, he slapped on an angry frown and started to shout at the men who’d tried to help me. I believe the officer said something like ‘Who do you think you are telling me what to do? I’m the policeman, not you!’ He approached my cell and began to unlock the gate. ‘Ten seconds, no more,’ he said in English.

  16

  * * *

  WE NEED GUNS

  * * *

  It was a long, hot and sweaty time spent locked up in Zakynthos town police station. I’d memorised every bit of graffiti marked on the cell walls, and I can still remember them. One detainee had written ‘TONI MONTANA’, the name of the infamous Cuban drug lord brilliantly portrayed by Al Pacino in the film Scarface (spelled incorrectly of course). He seems to be the fictional character that most small-time criminals idolise, regardless of the fact that he murders his best friend and ends up dead. I also remember reading ‘PATSI! GOUROUNIA! DOLOFONI!’ – which was written in its rightful Greek lettering. I learned what these words meant on my second day in Zakynthos, when a man called Sakis Sofos was thrown into the cell with me. Sakis looked a little bit like a Greek Mel Gibson in his thirties: he had the same short, neat brown hair, which was slicked back exposing his defined widow’s peak hairline. He pointed at each word one at a time and translated them for me.

  ‘Patsi – this is what we call cops. Gourounia – pigs, they are fucking pigs! Dolofoni – killers, that’s what they are my friend! Fucking murderers.’

  I’d always known that the word for ‘police’ in Greek was ‘astynomia’. But Sakis told me that the slang word ‘patsi’ had derived from the word ‘patsa – slap’, and is a direct reference to the brutality with which they may enforce the law. It just goes to show how common police brutality is in Greece. Of course, ‘not all Greek police are like that’, as argued by the police officer from the aeroplane when I was extradited days earlier. Nonetheless, I found it bizarre that the frequency of police violence in Greece had actually influenced the slang word for ‘cops’, and it was one of the key reasons I stood wrongly accused of murder in the first place.

  Journal extract – Day 4 – 26 July 2009

  His name is Sakis Sofos and he works in the motorbike shop down the road from the police station as a mechanic. He told me why he was here and he spoke enough English for us to communicate. He and his wife are divorcing; they have a daughter together and he pays the wife €80 a week. He even voluntarily showed me his cheque book for proof! He said that his wife always wants more money for their child, but uses the money for herself.

  He told me his life story and it was fucked up – abandoned at the age of eight, he was forced to bring himself up and work. He started off working at motorbike shops, working for very little money. He ended up selling weed, then cocaine, then heroin. By the age of twenty-five he was addicted to smoking the stuff. Once he settled down with his wife and had his daughter, he stopped everything. When he was selling heroin, he was earning €20,000 a week. Now he said he earns very little again.

  He went to his wife’s place to pick up his daughter. She asked him for more money, but he didn’t have it. He was in the driver’s seat of the car with his daughter sat next to him. His wife tried to grab his wallet, which was in the car. He grabbed her arm and pushed her head into the steering wheel causing the horn to sound.

  Sakis acted out what had happened, using a pillow that he’d brought in to the cell as a prop of his wife’s head. He thrust it into the wall and held it there. ‘I fucking grabbed her hand and pushed her head; all the neighbours could hear the car going beep beeeep. Then I said to her, “You have no idea what I will do!”’ His wife told the police what had happened. According to Sakis, she’d exaggerated the story, saying that he beat her and threatened to kill her.

  ‘Gynaikes, ti na kanoume? – Women, what you gonna do?’ Sakis smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  Suddenly, without any prior warning, a policeman opened the cell gate and handcuffed me from behind. He took me outside of the police station into a police car. ‘Where am I going!?’ I asked him.

  ‘The court,’ he replied.

  ‘I thought that was tomorrow!?’

  ‘Now! It won’t be long,’ he said. My dad was planning to bring me a shirt and trousers in the morning. The sudden change of plan was very frustrating. Now – for the judge’s very first impression of me – I would be wearing flip-flops, shorts and a vest. She would be considering my bail, so I wanted to look as presentable as possible.

  I was put in the back seat of the police car with my hands cuffed behind my back. We drove for about thirty seconds to the court down the road, where I sat in a hallway filled with policemen. A few of them surrounded me, holding machine guns to intimidate me. I could sense one of the young ones staring at me for ages, waiting for a glimpse of eye contact. I didn’t look at him; I couldn’t help but wonder whether these were the investigating officers who had pinned the crime on me. At the time I had no idea what those officers looked like.

  My parents, who must have been told by George Pyromallis that I’d be seeing the judge briefly, walked in. My mum approached one of the older police officers and said, ‘What’s all this for? Are the guns really necessary?’

  ‘Etsi einai – That’s how it is,’ he replied.

  ‘You don’t need guns,’ my mum insisted.

  ‘It’s written down.’

  ‘Where is it written?’

  ‘In the papers, it says he is dangerous and we need guns,’ he slurred.

  ‘He isn’t dangerous and you don’t need guns. Where were these papers from?’ she asked.

  ‘From London,’ the officer lied.

  I saw the investigating magistrate for a brief moment only. It was just to present myself to her and confirm my name. It wasn’t until the day after next when I went back to the court to make my first official statement. When I walked into the hallway of the courthouse for the second time, the officers didn’t have guns. The same policeman approached my mum. ‘You’re right, we don’t need guns. Einai ena kalo paidi – he’s a good kid,’ he said. The police had started to realise that I wasn’t dangerous at all.

  Journal extract – Day 5 – 28 July 2009

  I woke up earlier than Sakis so I could prepare myself to see the judge. When Sakis woke up, straight away he sparked up a fag. His sister came to visit him and he asked her to get two frappes and two tiropittes [cheese pasties]. I said, ‘No, don’t be silly,’ but he was the kind of man who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  It was time for me to go; this time I could wear a shirt and trousers at least. Just before I put my shirt on I was standing i
n my boxers, and one of the officers walked over to the cell and asked me if I was ready. I smiled at him, ‘Yeh I’m ready let’s go,’ I said. He laughed, so I think he realised what a stupid thing it was to say – like I’m going to go to court in my underwear.

  They cuffed me again with my arms behind my back and told me to get in the car. Sitting in there, I could feel my shoulder about to dislocate.

  I saw George Pyromallis waiting outside the court when we parked up. I nodded to him and he waved back. I stepped out of the car and was taken into the court and up the stairs again. I had a good chat with my parents and George after they finally took the cuffs off. I was surprised to see the cocaine guy from my first day in Zakynthos, who was strolling around the courts – he looked a bit lost.

  It was finally time to see the investigating magistrate, so I walked into the room and took a seat in front of her desk. She was very young for a judge – quite pretty. She looked like Apollonia from The Godfather – Michael Corleone’s first wife when he runs away to Sicily. The one who accidentally gets blown up in the car because Michael was supposed to be driving. Anyway – she asked me about the sequence of events on the night in question, which I told her. I explained I wasn’t even there! This took a good hour. She said, ‘Is there anything else you would like to add?’ I was thinking, Wow, where do I start? I told her everything – what I have been going through and how the end to this nightmare is in her hands. I told her everything under the sun that had to be said, but most importantly that the Hiles family deserves to know the truth and that I do not deserve to be held in custody any more. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she believed me. At some points I became emotional because it’s been such a long road.

  When I left the room I told my parents that it had gone very well. George told me that once the investigating magistrate had spoken to the prosecution judge, I would then have to go in and answer a few of her questions too.

  The judges were in the room for a good twenty minutes. I saw ‘Apollonia’ walk out – it was time to go and answer to the prosecutor.

  You could tell that she was a smoker because of the ring of wrinkles around her thin lips. She must have been in her forties, no younger. Her hair was dyed blonde with mousy-brown roots. She didn’t ask me to sit. I stood in front of her with George to my left and a translator to my right. She had the chance to ask me as many questions as she liked, but she asked me only one thing: ‘Why did it take two years to come back to Greece!?’

  Through the translator, I explained to her that it had been only one year. It took a year after Jonathan’s death for an EAW to be issued. I told her that I appealed the extradition because I could prove my innocence and feared pre-trial detention. I wanted the case to be properly investigated, and was willing to fully cooperate without any unnecessary prison time on remand. I wasn’t trying to prevent justice; I was trying to prevent further injustice.

  Her response was loud and abrupt – she seemed to be speaking twice as fast as the average person. She and George argued in Greek to the point where they were almost shouting at each other. My eyes swung between them as though I was witnessing a fierce game of tennis. My heart raced in anticipation – her decision would change the course of my life. The only thing that I understood George shouting was: ‘Pou nomizete oti tha trexei makria? Vrazilia!? – Where do you think he will run to? Brazil!?’

  ‘What’s going on!?’ I asked George frantically.

  ‘She wants to put you in prison,’ he said quickly before continuing to argue with her. I felt my knees about to give way. I contained myself from an emotional outburst and took a deep breath. It wasn’t over yet – the investigating magistrate still had a say in whether I would make bail.

  When we left the room I remember seeing Sakis sitting down, waiting to speak to the prosecutor for his own case. He could see that I was in a bad way – but I still shook his hand, knowing that I would probably never see him again. My mum began to cry when George told her of the prosecutor’s wish to put me in prison pretrial. My great-uncle Andreas owned a flat in Athens that he was willing to let me live in, so even bail in Greece wouldn’t have been a problem. However, the prosecutor couldn’t understand why I’d appealed the extradition in the UK – it made no sense to her. She seemed to have convinced herself that I would run away at the first chance! But if that were the case, I would have done a runner months earlier instead of taking a taxi to Belgravia Police Station and handing myself over to the authorities to be extradited!

  The anticipation was unbearable and my legs fidgeted. I needed to know the outcome, but dreaded hearing the words at the same time. The investigating magistrate and the prosecutor sat in the room together for at least another twenty minutes. I could hear them arguing through the door, but couldn’t make out the words. I believe that the investigating magistrate was pushing for my bail and the prosecutor was opposing it. The investigating magistrate walked out of the room, past us and back into her own office.

  ‘Come on,’ said George. We all followed her into the room and I sat down. I desperately needed her to tell me that I would be released until a trial. She spoke in fast Greek, really quietly. I couldn’t understand. My mum could. She stood up and I watched her eyes fill with tears.

  ‘You didn’t make bail,’ George said.

  Life doesn’t always go to plan. We all at some point hear things that we don’t want to hear, or have to do things that we just don’t want to do. Bad things happen – and we may have no control over them. The only thing that we have some control over is our reaction. When I found out that I was definitely going to a Greek prison, my instant reaction was to wail. I wailed so loudly that every person in the building could probably hear me – but I didn’t give a shit. My heart was broken and I was being taken away from my life for no reason. I couldn’t bear the thought of being held in a Greek prison, especially without knowing how long for. I didn’t want to face the reality of the situation; I felt incapable of doing so. I was a strong-minded person, but I wasn’t some streetwise kid who could deal with things like prison. I’d done nothing wrong – all that I had ever wanted was a thorough investigation so that I could be vindicated of the crime and there could be a possibility of finding the real culprit. Instead, I’d been given a terrifying prison sentence. To say that it was unfair is an understatement: it was a gross miscarriage of justice.

  I was in a state of utter shock, shaking with teary eyes. ‘I’ll give you money! However much you…’

  ‘No Andrew!’ George interrupted me.

  ‘Please, it wasn’t me,’ I stammered. The investigating magistrate handed me a pen and some documents. She couldn’t make any eye contact – I could tell that she didn’t want to lock me up. This decision came from the prosecutor, who knew very little about the case.

  ‘You have to sign here, Andrew; all this says is that you understand the decision,’ said George.

  I held the pen in my hands and looked at the small wad of Greek documents in front of me. I stared at it for a moment and took a breath, stopping myself from any more tears – but I couldn’t do it.

  ‘No!’ I screamed while bursting into another flood of tears. ‘I can’t. I can’t do it. I don’t understand the decision!’

  ‘Andrew, you have to do this,’ George added.

  The sense of injustice that had been burning inside of me for months was ready to erupt. ‘Do I? Do I really!?’

  My attention flipped to the police officer who was standing in the corner of the room. The translator standing next to me flinched as I swung my arm out to point at the officer with a full arm stretch. I heard gasps of surprise in the room. ‘What … is this guy gonna beat me into signing it!? That’s how it works here!’ I roared.

  I was sent out of the room to calm down without having signed the document. Sitting in the hallway of the court, I continued to sob as loudly as I could.

  Prison.

  I couldn’t even process the thought.

  It was dawning on me: I’d be loc
ked up in a foreign prison for days – weeks – months – maybe longer. It was real. It was actually going to happen. Fuck. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might be like.

  My hysteria wasn’t purely out of fear; it was also out of frustration. The decision was exactly what we’d been fighting against for over a year; it was disgraceful and inhumane. Granting me bail wouldn’t have changed the prosecutor’s life in the slightest, but her choice to lock me up changed the entire course of mine. I was a twenty-year-old student of good character and with no criminal record. I was an innocent man – all I had ever asked for was the chance to prove it.

  17

  * * *

  FIFTEEN MINUTES

  * * *

  I fainted in the hallway of the courthouse, and I’d never fainted before in my life. The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital to the sound of screams. I could hear them coming from the hallway; two women were crying in states of distress. I opened my eyes and witnessed a nurse rushing down the corridor pushing a hospital bed. It carried a man covered from head to toe in blood and my hair stood on end at the sight. It was as though I’d woken up in hell already.

  I was startled when I noticed a group of police officers standing to my left. Confused, with blurry eyes, it all came flooding back. After being briefly examined, the doctor said that it was fine for me to leave, so the police officers handcuffed me and I had to walk slowly through the hospital like a criminal. Staff members and people in the hospital hallway were watching and it was humiliating.

  As soon as we were back at the police station I was thrown back into the cell – trapped physically, but also in my own mind. I couldn’t stop shaking and my head pounded with deadening fear. It was difficult to absorb the news, especially as I was alone. I walked up and down the cell in an erratic state of panic and kept repeating to myself, It’ll be OK, it’ll be OK. Claustrophobia began to get the better of me; it was as though the walls were closing in. I didn’t want to sit down, I didn’t want to stand up; all I wanted was for it not to be true.