by Lee, M
There was sexual violence too, although I didn’t fear this as much. The predators seemed to target small, younger men, particularly Filipinos, Vietnamese and others less able to defend themselves. Sometimes the sex was consensual, or made as part of a deal by people who had nothing else to bargain with, but at times it was violent rape and we could hear the screams.
JULIE
Marcus kept the worst of all this from me as much as possible, but there was no disguising what a dangerous place it was. When he disappeared mid-sentence during that phone call and all I could hear was terrible screaming and fighting, I could hardly breathe until he was finally able to call back and let me know he was all right.
For Marcus a big low followed that first big high of being out of solitary. His easy access to phone calls meant I now had an instant barometer of his mood. As I wrote in a group email on 30 March:
Marcus called around 7 a.m. and we have spent quite a bit of time on the phone over the day. There is a direct correlation between the number of phone calls and how he is feeling, so today we are at the bottom of the rollercoaster. Wayne and I are doing our best to keep him in his seat until the ride is over.
This would become increasingly difficult over the next six months. I added, ‘Apart from the visits we’ve been coordinating reports, document lists, proofreading, emailing and calling. It is full-time work.’
Having Wayne there, dedicated to the cause, helped so much. He acquired a new nickname, Slider, in recognition of his status as my wingman. However I found it really hard to accept that other people had to get on with their lives. I understood that they did — of course they did. By this point more than two months had passed. But it still tore me up inside.
Rosemary, for instance, was an incredible support for Carol and Allan, and when I needed another opinion on events she and I would Skype or speak on the phone. At the time she was trying to set up her own business while also counselling paying clients. I’d ring her and she’d be in a session with someone and would say, ‘Look, can you call me back?’ Rather than be grateful she’d answered instead of letting me go to voicemail, I’d say, ‘No, I can’t.’ I hated that the rest of the world could go back to some kind of normal, while we were stuck living out this nightmare.
At work I tried to put on a smile and work as hard as always, but sometimes I’d snap at a colleague who said they were having a bad day. Yeah, right. I’d been having a bad couple of months. Most of the time though, people at work showed gentle, knowing compassion, and kept me going.
I was also angry and sad about the way people in the expatriate community distanced themselves from us. I suspected people who still worked for Nakheel had been told not to help us in any way, or maybe it was just self-preservation. I called Sean, who had picked me up at the airport when I flew back in, and left a few messages before I realised he wasn’t ever going to call me back. The same thing happened with other Australians there, who simply ignored texts or emails or literally turned in the other direction when they saw me coming.
Chris O’Donnell had also kept his distance, which was especially cutting on a personal level as we used to socialise regularly, and had considered him a friend. Never at any time during the ordeal did he try to contact us, or offer to intervene, as the CEO of Nakheel, and tell the prosecution that everything Marcus had done was above board. In 2011, he was formally called to a hearing to give evidence. He simply said that he had approved the deal, but said nothing about Marcus’s innocence.
There was a little café near home where I would often go with great supporters like Jane or with Karen or Rod Gilbody when I needed to get out of the house. One day I met Rod there and he told me that a bloke from Nakheel, whom I’d met once or twice, had stopped by his table to say hi. When he found out who Rod was waiting for he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
It did make me appreciate all the more the people who stuck by us. Tony Perrin, for instance, was still working at Nakheel so I got a message to him saying that I would understand if he needed to keep his distance. He rang to say, ‘I can make my own decisions and I’m going to see Marcus.’ He was one of the first people to go and visit him in Port Rashid. As Marcus says, we saw the worst of humanity, but we saw the best, too.
Chapter 14
RIDING THE ROLLERCOASTER
MARCUS
Now that I was out of State Security solitary my lawyer, Mr Ali, came to visit me. He told me he had examined the documents and knew I had done nothing wrong. But he also explained that the prosecutor controlled this situation. Mr Ali would try to speak on my behalf but at this stage there was little we could do. We just had to be patient until the prosecutor made his move.
Week after week, Julie and Wayne came to see me almost every day, one or both of them at many of the two daily visiting periods. It was a huge effort and it made a big difference to me.
WAYNE McKINLEY
We got into a routine where Julie would go to work until mid-afternoon and I would go in for the morning visit at Port Rashid Jail. Then we would meet up and go in together for the afternoon session. It took more than an hour in a taxi or the car each way but because there were no systems or regulations in force, you never knew how long you’d have with Marcus once you were there. It changed day to day. Sometimes you’d only be in with him for five minutes before the guards made you leave, other times you’d get half an hour. Sometimes the guards would come by and say, ‘Hurry up, time to go,’ then they’d disappear and you’d get away with another twenty minutes before they came back.
JULIE
After Ange and I had been going to the prison a while we noticed that some of the prisoners were allowed to sit with their loved ones on an old black sofa instead of at the glass/phone cubicles. If your husband was in on a non-violent offence, you could apply for special permission for these ‘contact visits’. We both asked our lawyers to request this permission.
A few days later one of Mr Ali’s assistants gave me a piece of paper in Arabic with some kind of official stamp on it. I showed it to the Port Rashid guards and Marcus was allowed to come and sit with me. In fact, as I learned when I asked one of the Arabic speakers at work, it wasn’t the right kind of permission at all. I came to realise that most of the guards were illiterate. I could have shown them anything as long as it had a stamp on it. So I kept presenting my ‘permission’ and they kept allowing it through.
Ange hadn’t yet received a permission document so she and Matt could only meet at the glass/phone cubicles, not on the sofa. I could see their dirty looks but I didn’t care, I was so happy to be able to sit so close to Marcus. Sometimes if the guards weren’t looking we’d sit side by side with our thighs touching until they yelled at us to move apart.
When Ange did receive the correct permission it woke the guards up to my ruse. So it was back to the glass/phone cubicles for us until Mr Ali received the correct document.
MARCUS
Matt and I still hadn’t been charged with anything. Officially, we were being ‘held for questioning’ but I hadn’t actually been questioned for more than two months. The Dubai Public Prosecution department refused to tell us what, if any, evidence they had against me, or to provide copies of the documents they had seized from my work or home. We needed all the Nakheel approval documents so I could prove my innocence.
The farcical Tamdeed hearings kept rolling around. Matt and I would be taken from the police station in handcuffs. First we would be dumped in a dungeon-like holding area under the court building. There were hundreds of men in here — even though we were often left to wait for hours it was so crowded there wasn’t even enough floor space to sit. There were no toilets or drinking water, just fearful, anxious and sometimes aggressive prisoners being shoved and shouted at by guards.
We’d be paraded, cuffed, through the crowded public areas into the court for the few seconds it took the judge to stamp the file, then we’d be out again. Mr Ali’s continual attempts to point out that there was no evidence against me we
re ignored. The process was a sick joke. We went through something like twenty of these (I stopped counting) and in Port Rashid I met people who had been held without charge for up to fourteen months.
The only good thing was that I would see Julie there and, if we had a sympathetic guard, get a few moments with her — perhaps even be allowed to touch hands.
After each one of these hearings I’d get a document on letterhead that read, in English and Arabic, ‘Dubai Public Prosecutions’. The rest of the page was in Arabic. I now had a translator — Jamal — who told me the allegations listed centred on ‘Bribery of a Government Official’. I was stunned. I hadn’t received any money so the ‘bribe’ accusation was baseless. But who was the government official? It was only later we discovered that Nakheel was now being treated as a government department, making Matt and me ‘government officials’!
I’d been in Port Rashid so long now that I was often the ‘old hand’ showing scared new prisoners how things worked and giving them a phone card to use or a bottle of water. Gail and James from the Australian consulate would come every three to four weeks to see Matt and me and check that we were OK, but it was clear by this point that there was little they could, or would, do to get us out. A lot of what they said was a variation on the line, ‘We can’t get involved in other countries’ legal affairs just as you wouldn’t like other countries to get involved in ours’.
I’d always assumed that the Australian government would move heaven and earth for a citizen in my position — that there would be meetings at the highest level with the prime minister saying ‘This is unacceptable . . .’. It’s not like that at all. I know now that there was some government involvement, but it was minimal; it seemed to be more about asking questions than registering concern, and it was completely ineffectual. What’s the fate of one man compared to billions of dollars in trade, right?
I saw and heard of other countries such as the UK, Netherlands, South Africa and the US speaking out against unacceptable treatment of their citizens, but not ours. I could never work out why.
One piece of information Gail and James did pass on was that it was very possible we would be moved to the main prison, ‘Central’, at some point. This was a terrifying thought. I couldn’t even imagine how I would survive in there.
JULIE
Every day Marcus would call me multiple times and often he would dictate notes about the Sunland transaction for me to type up for Mr Ali. I had to be cautious around him; a seemingly simple comment could send him into a ‘flat spin’ of stress. Even though I minimised the bad news I was sending to our supporters, extracts from the group update emails show the huge swings Marcus was subject to, and the effect on me and also Wayne.
March 30: Today was a difficult day for Marcus and me, we both got pretty upset and miserable. A tough, exhausting day but with the help of a number of ‘Team Lee’ on the ground and on the phone we were able to pull ourselves back from the edge.
March 31: Another day with a 7 a.m. phone call and then a 10 a.m. visit. Trying to be strong . . . Still very emotional . . . In the afternoon I received a phone call . . . Marcus had a shower and it was as though the water had washed away his sadness. He had an hour-long chat with Wayne and then called. He had found a strength inside himself. In his mind he is confident in the knowledge he has not done anything wrong and believes that he can cope with any questions put to him. He sounds strong and focused and confident. All I could say was ‘you may have to do a few more laps before the finish line. Pace yourself’. The feeling at the top of the rollercoaster is fantastic.
April 3: Today Marcus and I spent a lot of time together. Over 1 hour on the phone in the morning, then we managed to convince the guards to let us sit together for about 1 hour on the lounge in the morning and again in the afternoon. There were moments of panic, rest, excitement and disbelief all edged with an unhealthy dose of anger. Wayne was able to calm me down so I could speak to Marcus in level tones.
April 11: Today started off with the same stress as other days after too little sleep but the 10 a.m. visit with Marcus was really good. It was relaxed, a little sad when we spoke of times in the first 7 weeks, and Marcus filled himself with 5 more BabyBel cheeses and 3 Strepsils. I showed him the latest version of the Email Summary list . . . and took him through my drawings of the project goal, the key people with power to release M and how we can motivate these people. I think this may have helped him.
April 13: Marcus was in a lousy mood, I was totally miserable and Wayne copped it from both of us. It was a 2-visit day and both were very difficult.
April 15: I got a text from someone* the other day saying how ‘normal’ all this had become. At the time I was standing out the front of the police station, hands feeling dirty, smelling of smoke, feeling miserable inside, being pleasant to the guards yet leaving Marcus inside, again. It is familiar. But it is definitely not normal. It is not normal for Marcus, it is not normal for me, it is not normal for the hundreds of people accused and lost in the system. This is not normal.
April 17 (this one was written by Wayne): Marcus is over being banged up for yet another weekend where he tries to convince himself that it will be OK and this will be over soon . . . He is holding on to the little bit of hope that we can force into him but is frustrated and with good reason . . . More focus tomorrow on talking with Marcus while he & I keep going over and over the same things about this whole outrageous thing and watching him tear himself apart as to why he is in there and demanding his innocence by clarifying THE MOST THOROUGHLY DOCUMENTED LAND SALE/STRATEGY IN THE HISTORY OF BUSINESS!! The best place Marcus can be during these visits is where we focus on a strategic plan that outlines our movements through Monterosso, Italy, in the pursuit of consumption of Peronis and all the pesto we can fit in between!!! . . . He is holding on but is worn down and needs to see an end. We can see it, but with good reason Marcus has lost faith in the right thing being done and quickly. He will be OK tomorrow and will fight and push another week as will all of us.
MARCUS
Mike, the American, was now free after paying a fine and the original debt he owed. I tried to maintain the calm atmosphere he had set for the cell, but it became increasingly difficult. Two Russians, Timor and Dmitri, moved in. Both were being held on suspicion of rape. One morning I awoke to find another Russian had joined us overnight. Timor and Dmitri said his name was Max, he didn’t speak English and he was a businessman who had been caught up in something.
He didn’t look like any businessmen I knew. He was in his early thirties with a hard, soldier’s build. I counted one morning as he did more than 100 pull-ups on the bars of the cell. His tattoos hadn’t come from a trendy catalogue, nor had the rugged scars he bore from what looked like knife wounds. It was in the news at that time that a former Chechen rebel leader had been gunned down in a carpark in Dubai. Readers of England’s Independent newspaper were told, ‘There were unconfirmed rumours that a Russian citizen had been apprehended as a suspect’. ‘Max’, it was whispered in the jail, was the suspect in question.
It was time to find another place to sleep. Jamal told me that two of the people in his cell had just been transferred and I could have the bunks if I moved right now, before Najmi, the jail ‘Foreman’, sold the all-too-scarce spaces. His cellmates were Abdullah from Bahrain and an eccentric, but harmless, old Indian man named Yunus, but known by everyone as ‘Sexy’. Yunus had a nice little business that involved buying all the stock of something — phone cards, cake or whatever — from the trolley shop, then selling it at an even bigger mark-up. Jamal and Abdullah’s cell was a much better place to be than the one we were in now.
I told Jamal I wanted to take both bunks, one for me and one for Matt, knowing he also didn’t feel secure where we were. When I told Matt he only said, ‘I want a bottom bunk’, though we weren’t being offered a choice. More and more Matt was becoming withdrawn, being ‘in his cave’ as Julie and I called it.
When we moved Julie brought me in a photog
raph of Monterosso, where we’d had such a wonderful holiday, and I stuck it to the wall next to my bunk. I would stare at it, trying to convince myself I would be free to return there one day with Julie. When other prisoners asked me what the picture was I would say, ‘Project Monterosso’.
WAYNE McKINLEY
When you first arrive, Dubai is dazzling. In my first couple of weeks there Julie’s friend Karen Kendall organised for me to go out with her and a bloke she knew. He sent his driver to pick me up in a seven-series BMW and we went up to the cocktail bar at the top of the Burj Al Arab tower looking out over the water. He spent AUD5000 on just the three of us, ordering two AUD2000 bottles of wine and a AUD400 tower of just hors d’oeuvres, plus the tip. I thought, ‘This is amazing.’ That feeling wore off pretty quickly when you saw the real Dubai.
It was similar, in a way, to how I felt about Matt’s wife, Ange. When we first met I was struck by how tall, well-spoken and impressive she was. We were all working together, I thought, 100 per cent on the same path.
Julie and I were working our backsides off and everything we learned, we shared with Ange. We were sympathetic because she had three kids, which meant she had less time (although she also had nannies). But over time we started to think that maybe Ange wasn’t passing on all the information she had to us in the way we were to her. Things like court dates or certain documents or processes. We’d hear about them from the consulate or Mr Ali and find out Ange had already had that information but hadn’t told us for some reason.