Trapped: A Couple's Five Years of Hell in Dubai

by Lee, M

  I realised light was coming in from above and tilted my head. I could see the sky. It doesn’t sound like much, but I suddenly felt like I was anchored to the world again — I could see something beyond my cell walls, I could tell it was daytime, I could — jab. My thoughts were derailed by a sudden sharp pain in my left arm. I looked down and saw that the ‘nurse’ had given me an injection, putting the needle straight though my shirt.

  ‘What was that?’ I said, shocked, looking towards the two Emirati men.

  One of them shrugged. ‘Standard process.’ The nurse then moved to my right arm and started to draw blood. Who knew where those needles had been and who they’d been used on, let alone what I had been injected with. My stomach dropped just thinking about it.

  As soon as he finished I was led into an even smaller room off the previous one, where another man of Indian appearance sat behind a desk. He asked, ‘How are you?’

  I was far from all right, but the habits of a lifetime took over.

  I answered, ‘OK, I guess, considering.’

  He checked my blood pressure and said it was high, adding, ‘That’s what usually happens when your freedom is taken away from you’ in a way that didn’t make me feel better.

  He asked if I needed anything medical. I said I had asthma and used Ventolin, but I hadn’t had my inhaler with me when I was taken in. He said he would try to get me some, then I was led back to my cell.

  I remember reading that after the 9/11 attacks people who were filmed on the streets of Manhattan still covered in dust from the falling Twin Towers described what they had just lived through as like being in a movie. Even though what was happening to me was so different from what they went through, I now understood how they felt. I simply didn’t have any point of comparison. Things like this just did not happen in real life to people like me. I kept thinking over and over, ‘It’s like something you’d see on TV.’ Only I couldn’t turn it off.

  Chapter 10

  SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

  MARCUS

  Back in my cell, I begged to speak to the Australian consulate. The guard got a phone and gave it to me and said, ‘Okay, you call.’

  I said, ‘But I don’t know the number. You have to get the number.’

  He took back the phone, saying ‘You don’t need to call then.’ It was just a game to him.

  The rest of the day and that night crawled by. I slept fitfully, with no sense when I awoke of whether it was minutes that had passed or hours. The electric light above me wasn’t set to an automatic timer, someone had to manually operate it and it went on and off randomly. I tried to keep my own mental clock by listening out for the prayer calls.

  In what I judged to be mid-morning on Tuesday, 27 January, the door was unlocked and I was led back to the area where I had been given the needle the day before. One of the more senior of the men who had questioned me at Police Headquarters was sitting in a corner, radiating hostility.

  I said, ‘I don’t know what this is about, I don’t understand, I haven’t done anything wrong or taken any money.’ I knew I was pleading but I just wanted to try and reach him.

  But he just snapped, ‘You’re lying . . . you will tell us the truth.’

  Another man entered, handed me my Blackberry and told me I could call my wife, my wife only, and I had to be fast. He said ‘You’re only allowed to say you’re still alive. You’re not allowed to mention the case.’

  I could see a red light and the ‘battery low’ alert flashing on the screen.

  When Julie answered, I said, ‘It’s me.’

  With shock in her voice, she said, ‘Are you OK? Where are you?’

  I told her I had to be quick and I didn’t know where I was. ‘I’m being held in cells somewhere.’

  She asked again if I was OK, and if I had been beaten.

  I didn’t want to provoke the local men who didn’t take their eyes off me as I spoke, so I told her I was all right. I told her very briefly and as cryptically as I could that this seemed to be connected to a Sunland transaction, but I still didn’t really understand how or know any details. I asked her to arrange to have Dudley taken to the boarding kennels we used when we went on holidays; it would be one less thing for me to worry about.

  Julie said that she had learnt that the police were required to take me to the prosecutor within 48 hours of my arrest, and they could then make an application to continue to detain me. She said that the people she had been speaking to advised her to wait until that point — not very far away now — and see what would happen. I asked if she was coming back to Dubai and Julie said they were trying to find out if it was safe for her to do so. We said ‘I love you,’ to one another and the brief call ended.

  Looking up as I finished I saw Matt Joyce being led through the doorway. Like me, he was dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing at work on Sunday. There was a strange atmosphere in the room — the police and guards seemed to be watching for something between us: a confrontation? A plea? I couldn’t tell. We exchanged a look but no words as we passed one another. He seemed as anxious and disoriented as I was. But I took some small comfort from having spoken to Julie. I knew that she was doing everything she could and people were aware of what was happening to me.

  JULIE

  By the second day into it I’d called or emailed everyone I could think of. The calls to me had slowed down — people were still trying to find out what was going on, but there was nothing to report. I thought it might be best to try to do something normal and ordinary, so Mum and I went down to the local shopping centre to pick up a couple of things.

  I was in the carpark of suburban Miranda Fair when my phone rang — it was Marcus’s number. My heart leapt into my throat. I didn’t know if it would really be him or some policeman calling, but it was Marcus! Mum saw the excitement in my face as I answered and when I got off she said, ‘Thank goodness, it’s all OK then?’

  I had to say, ‘No, Mum, it’s not.’ He was still locked up who knew where in the UAE.

  I was desperately worried about him, but he was alive. I quickly jotted down what he had said in the call. I wasn’t sure what to do about flying back. My instinct was to get on a plane as soon as I could, but if they had arrested Marcus, who was innocent of any wrongdoing, they might do the same to me. I spoke to the lawyer who had called me, Jim, explaining my fear. He said he’d look into it for me and when he called back he calmly and confidently said, ‘No, you’ll be OK. It’s safe for you to come back.’ I changed my ticket to leave Australia on the 28th.

  MARCUS

  Back in my cell I saw the guards had put a worn-out old towel on my bed. I buzzed the intercom several times over the next few hours, asking in vain to go to the bathroom. Finally a guard came and said I could have a shower but I had to be quick. I had to put the dirty, crumpled clothes I’d been wearing for days back on afterwards, but at least I’d been able to clean myself, even if I’d had to do it standing in a filthy shower cubicle used by probably dozens of people that day before me.

  It was approaching sunset, by the prayer call indications, when I was led out into the reception area. It felt so good to be able to stretch my legs. Matt was led in and we were both taken outside to where another blacked out four-wheel drive awaited, though at least this time I could see into the front and through the windscreen. Matt and I were put in the back and two men in kanduras got in the front. We started to ask each other questions when one of the Emiratis said, ‘No talking.’ Speaking in a low murmur I said that I was totally confused about all this and Matt, who looked very nervous, indicated he felt the same. I relayed what Julie had told me about the requirement that we see a prosecutor within 48 hours, and suggested to Matt that might be where we were going.

  At this point Matt dropped a bomb.

  He said, ‘I helped this company open up a trust account.’

  I said, ‘What? Which company?’

  He said, ‘I helped Prudentia to open up an escrow account, because they couldn’t open
up a bank account in Dubai.’ I knew what an escrow account was, of course: it was a way that two parties in a deal could temporarily store money with a neutral third party, similar to the trust account in which a lawyer or an accountant holds money on behalf of their clients. But I couldn’t understand what connection that had to this case and particularly to me.

  Before I could ask, we pulled up outside what appeared to be a large government office. The carpark was empty; clearly the place was closed. I guessed it was around 6 p.m. and it was rapidly getting cold outside. After 36 hours of being locked in the chilly cell with no jacket, I was already coming down with something.

  On the way up to the first floor, I said to Matt, ‘You have to tell someone, explain what’s happened and clear this up. Explain Sunland’s purchase of the land and that everything was OK.’ Then we were separated; I was left in a small waiting area while he went in first to see the prosecutor. According to the clock on the wall he was in there for the next six hours.

  The other young Emirati from the car joined his colleague and me when Matt went in, and to pass the time I started to talk to the two of them. They told me they were junior officers with Dubai’s Criminal Investigation Department, CID. I told them that for the life of me that I couldn’t work out what was happening. They said that the prosecutor we were seeing handled ‘all the business things’ so if I hadn’t done anything wrong then he would know.

  After midnight Matt was led out and I was taken in. As we passed he said ‘Good luck’ in a cynical tone that I took to mean things hadn’t gone well for him. A plaque on the door had the prosecutor’s name: Khalid Al Zarooni was the thin Emirati man wearing small metal-rimmed glasses and sitting behind a desk. A younger man, an assistant I guessed, sat at a computer, and another man sat near me, saying he was the interpreter.

  I asked if I could have a lawyer and the prosecutor said, ‘No, not needed,’ just as the police had said when I was being interrogated initially.

  Over the next hour and a half we went through everything I had been asked about two days earlier — the business case reports, the D17 purchase and the fact that I’d had nothing to do with any deal Sunland set up on the side, nor did I know Angus Reed. The prosecutor asked if I had received any money from the deal to which I said a firm, ‘No, never.’

  It worried me that in relaying the prosecutor’s questions the translator again referred to money Sunland had paid Prudentia as ‘secret commissions’. It was clear that he was using this word interchangeably with ‘bribes’. No amount of insistence by me that this was a ‘premium’, an amount openly negotiated between the two companies, made any difference.

  The translator then summarised the four-page statement the younger man had typed up and I was told to sign it, which I did. When I eventually saw a translation — much, much later — I realised that both questions and answers were in the prosecutor’s words, not mine. It even included a supposed exchange where the prosecutor asked if I would like to have a lawyer present and I declined: the exact opposite to what had actually occurred.

  In the early hours of the morning we were driven back and locked in our cells again. We still hadn’t been charged with any crime. I wondered if Julie had flown out of Australia yet.

  JULIE

  Before I left Sydney I used Mum’s computer to write down all the email addresses and phone numbers I had for anyone who might be able to help. I made one copy for myself and left one with her, just in case the advice Jim had been given was wrong, and I was stopped at the airport. Carol and Allan wanted to see me again before I left and I couldn’t say no without telling them what was happening — which I wasn’t about to do.

  The day before I left they drove me to the city where I needed to do simple admin things that I’d planned to take care of during the trip, accountancy and banking chores. Mum had realised how awkward it might be for me, so she’d volunteered to come along. Every time my phone went, Mum would distract Carol — ‘Oh, let’s look at this shop over here.’ And every time Carol asked questions about Marcus that Mum thought might be too much for me she’d play defence and change the topic, diverting attention by asking about Marcus’s brother Wayne’s job or something else. She was exhausted when we got home.

  The next day Wayne and Carol picked up me and Mum and drove me to the airport. Again, I couldn’t refuse without arousing suspicion. The same thing happened for the hour we sat in the departure lounge — if Carol unknowingly strayed too close to the bone, Mum would distract her.

  When I took my seat on the plane I was shaking. I kept saying to myself, ‘Focus, I’ve got to focus, I don’t know what’s ahead. I know it’s bad, but whatever it is I’ve got to do it.’ I allowed myself one glass of red wine with dinner to try to calm my nerves. It was sitting there on my tray, barely touched, when the person in front of me reclined their seat very suddenly and the wine went all over me. Great, now I’d arrive in Dubai stinking of alcohol. I cleaned up as best I could.

  Even though I’d been getting maybe four hours’ sleep a night at best ever since this happened I couldn’t sleep during the flight and I couldn’t eat. It was a very long fifteen hours before we began our descent. As we came down we were surrounded by thick fog. Even when we landed I could see nothing out of the windows. It may sound ridiculous but I felt so alone and anxious that the fog seemed like a message: you’re entering a bad place and there’s no map for this journey.

  It was such a relief when I made it through Customs unchallenged.

  MARCUS

  The day after our visit to the prosecutor I was given an old pair of the loose Indian or Pakistani pyjama-style garments called punjabis in the Middle East (shalwar kameez elsewhere) to wear instead of my soiled clothes. I was then taken out of my cell to be interrogated again by two police, one familiar and aggressive, the other new. They told me to write a list of all my bank accounts and any companies I owned. Despite everything, I was still optimistic at this point. I thought, ‘Well, that will show them once and for all that I never received any money.’

  The next day I was handed a mobile phone and allowed to call Julie. I desperately hoped she was back. I didn’t even know her Dubai number as I always just scrolled through my phone for her name and pressed the call button, but the Emirati guard who handed me the phone had a clipboard with the number on it. I was so nervous as he dialled.

  When she answered I said, ‘You’re there!’ and could hear the panic in my own voice.

  Julie had got back to Dubai that morning and was trying to find out where we were being held and why we had been arrested. I told her it was vital that she get copies of the D17 business case and other key documents so we could check on what might be the cause of all this. By this stage the police had taken everything from my office at work and they had my home computer, so she would have to call around to the other expats and see what they could get hold of. I told her I had emailed these documents on the day of my arrest to the man called Mohammed, and I thought he was from Dubai World Internal Audit. (I later learned this was Mohammed Wafa, who was not from the Dubai World Internal Audit but was Mohammed Mustafa’s assistant.)

  We talked quite frantically for the next few minutes as I tried to get across every thought that had been running through my head for that last few days and she asked clarifying questions. I was sure the call was bugged so I was careful not to say anything disparaging about the police or Dubai, although I told her I was in solitary and how hard that was. I was crying as we told each other we missed and loved each other and Julie tried to reassure me that everything would be OK as the guard motioned for me to end the call.

  JULIE

  In Dubai I was met at the airport by two Nakheel employees: Linda from the HR division and a guy called Sean who worked in finance. I’d been in touch with both of them from Australia. They took me home and asked if I would be OK on my own.

  When they had gone I thought, ‘Where do I start?’ Justin had put Dudley in the boarding kennels so I didn’t have him to worry abo
ut, and Indrani was out at work. The police had taken our only computer. My thoughts were racing. I got a yellow Post-it note, wrote ‘Think’ on it and stuck it on the wall.

  Another Nakheel HR person called Cedric called me and said I could come and meet the Dubai World Internal Audit people. Ange was also coming and she called and arranged to pick me up and take me to the offices.

  Before this had all started I’d only met Ange on a couple of occasions, but in the early days of the ordeal we were thrown together. Like me she was very stressed and very worried about Matt, although there did seem to be another heightened emotion there too. Not excitement, exactly, but something close to it. I guess people react differently to situations.

  When we arrived at the Internal Audit building we were taken into a very ostentatious office with lounges and tea and sweet snacks all over the place. At that point I thought Internal Audit were the evil ones behind all this, so everything in the office looked sinister to me. We met with a huge guy whose name was Abdullah, and a smaller one called Mohammed. They told us our husbands were being held by State Security. They said Marcus and Matt had been questioned by the prosecutor and explained more about the ongoing detention process.

  I said, ‘But are they OK?’

  And Abdullah said very matter-of-factly, ‘Yes, they’re treating them fine. They haven’t got them strapped up, they’re not being beaten.’ He wasn’t trying to be funny.