I’m waiting. Today is my sentence for my crime. My lawyers tell me not to worry. They’ve told my family a million times this will all be over soon. I’m the only one who doesn’t believe them. People tell me I have no faith.
I’m here. I was ferried here by officers, caged within a van, along with other captured beasts, racing along streets, barging traffic out of the way. Yes, I can see the law is upheld by all.
Once the van has pulled inside the garage parking underneath the courts, all us prisoners are herded into a small caged-off area. The officers quickly find their mobile phones, seats and coffee. Us prisoners find a corner, a bench or a line to pace and try not to think.
The walls and seats are scratched with names, judgments and slurs against authority. I’m pacing up and down, with no thought bar the pounding of each step.
What a mess all this is. My parents won’t tell me how much they’ve spent on lawyers. I know I wouldn’t have given them a penny – it’s just a rampant business.
A small elevator opens with a ping, the telephone rings. The officers look to the cage. It feels like a lottery. Which one of us goats will be chosen?
It’s my turn, the others breathe a sigh of relief. I’m handcuffed. Squeezed in beside two overweight uniforms, and we’re riding up, up from the bowels to the belly.
I enter the courtroom. Everyone goes silent. It’s as if I’ve startled them with my presence. In a matter of seconds, they go back to the noisy roar.
Once again, I’m in the dock. Watching. Everyone is watching me. I can feel all eyes burning in my neck. And something else, something good. I turn and see my wife beside Leighton. A moment of solace flushes me. Just to see their faces was enough to give my feet the courage to stand. I smile, a forced smile. It is returned by both.
Again, at the sound of the three bangs on wood, the bodies rise noisily to their feet. The judge enters, and strides to his highchair. Everyone sits. I stand. Alone. The court goes quiet.
The judge leans his head on his palm, like a bored child, and begins to read from the papers in front of him. He picks his nose. His monotone voice, would make even the liveliest words seem dull. He was the one who passed judgment on my life.
I wonder if he knew what he did? It is disconcerting to think that these judges don’t know what a day inside prison is really like. If they did, would they be so heavy-handed?
I could not hear his mumbling words. A few numbers of articles of law that meant nothing to me. Then a number that hit hard, like the sudden loss of a loved one, straight to the belly, echoing deep with resonance. Ten and a half years. A number that was beyond my dreams. The shuffling of papers. Feet standing. My sentencing was concluded.
I turn to see familiar faces. My friend Leighton is shock, his face drained of blood. My fiancée … her beautiful face stained with tears. I resorted to humour. In the few seconds I was allowed to speak to them, I smiled and said, “I’ll see you in a decade.”
I am ushered from the court with policemen beside me, holding my arms, although in truth they were holding my legs from collapsing. My lawyer follows, his gown flapping with each step he takes.
I am given a moment with him in a little room behind the court. I begin rolling a cigarette. My lawyer’s shaking hands offers me one of his. I take it. He already has one in his mouth. He lights it and inhales, smoking violently. I watch his hands shake.
He tells me briefly that the prosecutor had wanted 14 years and had come down to ten and a half in our deal. I ask him one question: “I thought it was arranged. I thought a deal was struck. Why did I plead guilty and not go before a jury?”
He puffs on that cigarette and tells me not to worry, that I’d never serve the full time, that we’d appeal, and that there would be constitutional cases and even the Court of Justice of the European Union.
I can see through him and I don’t believe him. Whether he’s bluffing because he doesn’t know what else to do or he’s too chicken to face the reality of the mess he’s helped create, I’ll never know. I feel a scapegoat but I’ll never know the truth.
*
I don’t even know what fully happened that day. I have never received any paperwork, and have never been able to look through the transcripts of the sitting. I was done. Finished. Sentenced.
That day, when I returned to prison, I knew in my heart that I would never find justice. I believed then that I’d never leave prison, see my family again, or be free.
The appeal
October 31, 2013. The day of my appeal.
Definition of “appeal”: A request made to a court of law or to someone in authority to change a previous decision.
I was hopeful. If not for myself, for my family who was losing hope.
So many letters had been sent to the Queen, the Pope and every authority of every land. I knew that these petitions were doomed to fail, because we live in a system that is based on capitalism, but sometimes, the replies brought comfort to my parents. My wife and I saw it all for what it was. The workings of a system that doesn’t care and doesn’t really want justice. I was snared.
I walked into court, into yet another hall. I don’t remember the number, only that the room was mainly dead trees, surrounded by dead faces, with a symbol of Jesus on the cross in front of us all. That gave me hope. But, then again, it’s a symbol of how even God had to sacrifice his only son. What hope had I?
On entering the courtroom, I saw the majority of people there were ones against me. The deck was stacked. There were only a few familiar and friendly to my case. My wife had made the 2000-mile journey and stood hopeful. There were reporters, David Camilleri a member of the Alternattiva Demokratika political party, my father, Leighton and his mother.
I was allowed a moment to sit alongside them.
My lawyer stood in front of the appeal judges.
“This man …”
He pointed towards me, with a finger that shook the room.
“This junkie of cannabis …”
I was so surprised that I looked behind me to see who he was referring to.
His words were so volatile, so dramatised that it felt like a scene out of Quincy M.E. I cannot remember the whole speech; I have never been able to get hold of it – shame, as it would make for some entertaining reading.
My best friend’s mother, over 60 years old, was speechless. She turned to me and told me, “That man is damning you to hell.”
The lawyer, MY lawyer, rambled on for some more time, then he sat down, sweat trickling down his face, and looking very satisfied with himself.
I was dumbstruck. Everything we had spoken about, was not mentioned. The statement I had written to the court, unread. My side was never given. My voice was muted. Whether this was because of incompetence or whether by malice I am yet to discover. But it’s too late, the damage to my soul is done. I am shattered.
Those who favour glory and riches in the business of justice, over integrity, you know who you are. My words cannot tell. You know. And when the cloud of darkness comes for you, I hope your judges find you less wanting.
I pray for you.
Hallowed ground: the Constitutional sittings
I’m pacing again in a cage. I can’t help thinking that here, men are guilty until proved guilty. This is the Constitutional sitting.
Today I’m to appear in front of three judges. The highest sitting in this land. As I enter the courtroom my handcuffs are removed. Sometimes they leave them on, today they don’t. I look guilty and unworthy before all.
There are people waiting for their turn of justice. Lawyers too numerous to count fill this hallowed hall. Mine is always not there until the last minute, or later.
I feel like a second-class citizen or lower. Much lower. I’m not even a citizen of this land, and my own doesn’t appear to want me. My Embassy too had branded me a drug criminal, and don’t send representatives to witness any of my court sittings. I’ve not seen anyone today, apart from reporters and a few caring friends. They are drowned under
the hateful faces of the people staring at me.
These Constitutional sittings are all in Maltese. I understand little. My mind can’t keep up with words in a foreign tongue. So many languages, so much confusion.
Proceedings proceed and I am there, lost and almost uncaring if it wasn’t my own life.
My lawyers finally turn up. “Team sexy”, my one friend dubbed them as they enter the court in a fluster, looking as if they had just attended some nuptials. Gowns hanging loose off shoulders, clothes askew as those of people interrupted in the middle of some very important business.
It’s all a charade. A joke I’m not party to. I see my lawyers, a man and a woman, almost acting like lovesick teenagers. My life is a game to them. No one really cares. I, myself, am starting to care less.
Prison is a place where life is easy. You’re told what to do, what to think and what you can have and not have. There is simplicity in that. Is that institutionalisation?
I’m moved to the front. Lawyers speak. The judges look overfed and bored. One of them starts speaking, his jowls rattling like the sound of a wild animal. I can’t understand what he’s saying anyway. I’ve given up on learning Maltese.
Voices talk, people move, and I stay stationary amidst it all. Like a tree I bend in the storm.
Before I know what’s happened, I’m pushed out of the court hall. All I’ve understood is the date for the next sitting. Too many days to count. Too many days to care.
It’s back into the hands of the prison’s Special Response Team (SRT) and the police. For some reason I’m already branded a dangerous person, needing more guards. More resistance. I begin to believe their words. Maybe I am a criminal?
*
At another sitting, I was led away from the court hall, cuffed and pushed. It was one of the few times my wife could fly from Wales to be there. She used to try, when we still had hope and money. That faded.
That day she was crying – not crying but wailing. A woman in pain, pure pain. I tried to stop for one moment, and break free from the oppression of the prison SRT. But one of their more hateful officers would not let me pause. I pleaded, begged to console my wife, he just smirked. I can only believe he was instigating me, wanting me to resist, so he could be given the chance to use force. I only managed a stolen brief hug and a kiss.
I am not a violent man, but that day I came very close to spending an eternity in prison. That man’s smirk almost cost him his life and mine. I was back in prison before I knew it. The day faded into one that I wanted to forget, and in fact I remember little of the judgments, sittings and proceedings of my trial.
I am sure that when this book comes out, there will be many who will throw out the value of my words.
That is their right.
This is my truth.
Citadel tours
February 12, 2008. Day 62. Around 5 a.m. the intercom interrupts my dreams. Reality seems distant but the gruff Maltese voices barking hurrying orders are very real. I’m rubbing the sleep from my eyes, longing to curl back to bed and for this all to be a dream.
At 5.30 a.m. the cell door is opened, the boiler is not yet hot, but I still fill my cup. It’s barely tepid, and together with the awful-tasting coffee powder I have, it’s hard to push down, but it does the job of waking me up for another day in court ahead of me.
By 6 a.m. myself, Barry and two correctional officers are flying across deserted streets, tearing to the other side of the island. When we are unfortunate to chance an early morning commuter, the blues and twos go on, blasting everywhere with sound and light, until the commuter is wide awake too and pulls off the road to let this cage of dangerous men in transit hurtle down its path.
Before it’s even 7 a.m., we screech to halt at the Ċirkewwa ferry port, tossed from what can be described as the relative comfort of the Maltese ride, when compared to the brutality of the Gozitan police transit van. With its caged interior and blacked-out windows, it looked like any other police van. However, on the side of this one was the faded black cross, giving away its former use as a mortuary van. Maybe it was unfit for the dead but reconstituted for us lesser beings. We’re thrown inside and driven onto the car deck of the ferry to Gozo. We’re left locked inside the van, down below deck.
All the officers head to the stairs, they pause and seem to decide which one will be left on babysitting duty. Throughout the journey, the officer who draws the short straw stays on the perimeter, close enough to see if we try anything, but close enough to the stairs, in the event of a May Day situation, when the doors would automatically seal the car deck off, and us to Davy Jones’ Locker.
It’s hot, even in February. Car exhaust hangs around like fog. Time moves differently when eyes watch from inside a cage, longingly looking out at people living lives. Seconds move like years. As prisoners we look more atypical than ever: staring out between bars.
Just after 8 a.m., we’re herded into the holding area in Rabat, Gozo, which consists of a few 6x6 feet cells, upstairs from the police garage. More fumes slip in to make me sleepy. There’s little else to do in these cells. The walls are plastered with graffiti, in English, Maltese and Arabic. That always passes some time.
There are no toilets in these cells, only a hard board bunk and a few bits of threadbare bedding that are left on the bed, waiting for the next customer. On this occasion a cat leapt from my bed and dashed between my legs, making it through the door – like Indiana Jones – just as it’s slammed, bolted and locked with gusto and pleasure.
Barry and I are tired, or again shell-shocked by surroundings. It goes quiet, as again we accept reality. I nod off, and am then woken up by Barry banging on the door, screaming for the officer. Coffee and toilet. Well, now that he’s said it, I want it. So, I join in the volley with him. Our effort gets rewarded: at 9 a.m. we’re given a cup of boiling black coffee, which smells and tastes of oil from the garage underneath. We accept it eagerly; we know that cups of coffee are few and far between. And I notice that it’s always the same officer, and realise that were it not for him, even this muck would not be brought to us.
At 10.30 a.m. the nice officer is back and this time it’s with food. A plastic bag is passed in gingerly; it’s grabbed tenderly and then retreated back into the shadows. Two pieces of bread with kunserva (tomato puree paste) and one orange. It’s hard to get down, but there is always someone eating worse food, or nothing at all, and so that aids digestion.
At 11 a.m. it’s another cup of coffee, the taste is mechanical, oily and hard from the water. It’s terrible. It’s good. It’s unforgettable.
Between nodding off and thinking and going crazy, time slips by. At 1 p.m. feet and keys can be heard shuffling towards us, too many to be good news and anyway, we’ve had our fill of kindness for the day. The doors are opened, handcuffs put on and tightened and again we’re herded from the cells, to the back of the transit, cage bolted, door locked and we’re rattling along cobbled streets towards the court.
The courts in Gozo are up high, in the old citadel, to the side of a very pretty square. The van drives up narrow winding roads past tourists walking leisurely on their holiday. When the van pulls up outside, locals and tourists freeze to watch the show unfold, as the two doors are opened with jingling keys and the handcuffed men pushed out and led up the stairs into the court building.
I suppose not much has changed: maybe in the olden days, they would have thrown some rotten fruit and veg; at least they’d have got their 5-a-day like that.
Once inside the historic old building we’re marched up the flight of stairs. I wonder how many outlawed men have trodden these very stairs. The steps are worn out from condemned men’s weight. Pairs of eyes stare back from everywhere. Faces and people blur into a gallery of discomfort. We’re pulled through and stuffed into a corner, the bodies of the accompanying police acting like a natural defence. Protecting us from others or others from us, I’m still unsure which.
By 1.20 p.m. we’re already being jostled out of the courtroom, shove
d down the stairs, handcuffed and piled into the van once again, as if the whole thing was played at double speed.
I spent less than five minutes before the magistrate, with no one addressing me, other than to say, “Stand there!”
Once we were out, the kind officer explained a little: “Your lawyer didn’t turn up.”
It was back to the cells on top of the police garage in Rabat, back to the cell I’d left less than an hour ago. Home, from home. It feels sadly good.
Before being locked, I beg for the toilet. All I do is beg, it seems. I am finally escorted to the rank room, where there are only two pieces of toilet paper. When I ask for more, in manner of Oliver, I get a “do it in your pants in the cell then”.
Anger boils and the folly of resistance pops its head. Before I know it, I am stripped naked and tossed into the cell again. More resistance on my part. More shouting and obscenities by both parties. I am cold, dehumanised, demoralised.
The day fails to get better. By the time we arrive back in the CCF, at 6 p.m., another verbal altercation has taken place in the van which results in the back door being opened and one officer pulling me forward with handcuffs while another kicks the side of my head giving me an instant black eye.
There is not much point going into specifics of the event. I have everything recorded, names and numbers. I know that neither side was right. And I also know that if I ever wanted to take it forward in the Maltese courts, I would lose.
It takes me until the next day to see the prison doctor. When I ask for photos to be taken, there is no camera available. When I ask for copies of his notes, I am told they are personal. When I speak to the British Embassy, they do not believe me.
But I, Daniel Holmes, am not yet broken, there is still a tale to tell and a war still to rage.
The negative virus
Again, there is a malevolent depression that grips everyone and everything. It spreads through the Division like an unseen fog. But unlike a fog, it permeates to the very core of every living thing in its wake. It is something I’ve never felt outside and never want to.
Daniel Holmes: A Memoir From Malta's Prison: From a cage, on a rock, in a puddle... Page 8