by Lee, M
There weren’t any Emiratis at my work but I spoke to the Public Relations Officers, who dealt the most with the locals, and asked if they’d be able to find someone. One of the guys said, ‘Maybe if you pay fee you might be able to find an old man somewhere out in one of the country areas to do it, but it will be difficult and it will cost a lot.’
I remembered Tariq Al Zarooni, the young Emirati Marcus had employed who had had us over to his family home. I tracked down his number and spoke to him. He asked me if Marcus had done anything wrong. When I assured him he hadn’t, he said, ‘Oh yes, I’d like to help out.’ I was so relieved. I asked him to meet us at the courts on Sunday morning.
It was while I was tracking down Tariq on the Thursday that Matt got out. That was a shocking moment. Ange had told me just the night before that she was having difficulty getting the money from Australia and had made no progress with the Emirati passport. Then I got a text from her around midday on Thursday saying, ‘I got a miracle call late last night via private friend. Seeing is believing today’. I interpreted this as a reference to the Emirati passport. Then, not long after speaking to Marcus, I got another text saying, ‘I have just had word Matt is being released this evening’. I feel nauseated even now thinking about the duplicity. At 8 p.m. I received a text from Matt: ‘I am going to make some high level calls for passport tmrw, Marwan, sultan. Pls try not to worry’. I knew nothing would come from it, and nothing did. The next afternoon Ange sent another text asking if I knew where there was a phone shop!
I called Tariq on the Saturday just to make sure he was all set, but was sent straight through to his voicemail. I called again and kept calling until I realised he wasn’t going to call back. Wayne and I went down to the courts the next morning with Mr Ali but Tariq just didn’t show.
Devastated, I went with Mr Ali’s assistant to see the main judge to plead with him to vary the bail requirements. He said no on the grounds that it wouldn’t be fair to Matt, who had already met the conditions. I called Gail Miller at the consulate. She said, ‘Just talk to your lawyer, they will be able to help you.’
But Mr Ali couldn’t help. It was never even a possibility that he would have given us his own passport — it would have been very inappropriate for a lawyer to do that for a client, even if he hadn’t needed it to travel overseas, which he did. But it was increasingly clear that the only way we would get an Emirati to agree was to pay them for the ‘service’, and since this was essentially illegal, Mr Ali couldn’t have any part of it. Why would a judge set a condition that could almost certainly only be met by engaging in an illegal act? Two words: Dubai moment.
Lovely Indrani was so upset at the thought of Marcus not getting out she said, ‘I don’t have any money but I can do “something” to get a passport.’ This from a woman who wasn’t even comfortable touching a man who wasn’t her husband or son. Gritting my teeth I texted Ange for help, since she’d been able to organise a passport for Matt somehow. She suggested I call Romila, a woman we had met at Port Rashid Jail when she was visiting her husband. I did and Romila put me in touch with a fixer, Rishi. When I rang him he said, ‘Sure, OK, it’s going to cost at least AED100,000 [about AUD32,000].’ I’d had to scrape together pretty much everything we owned for the bail so I tried to bargain him down.
I said. ‘I’ll pay, but only 50,000.’ He wasn’t sure about that but he said he would get an Emirati passport holder to meet me at the courts that afternoon at 2 p.m.
The Emirati who turned up looked like he was nursing a massive hangover. He went into the prosecutor’s office and came back out saying the deal was off because the prosecutor had said Marcus was guilty. I felt like roadkill. When I got home, Karen took over. She got back on to Rishi and pushed him really hard until he agreed to find another Emirati to meet me, her and Wayne at 8 a.m. the next day, Monday.
MARCUS
I spoke to Julie very early that Monday morning to get the Joyces’ number. I rang it and Matt answered. Keeping my tone very even I said, ‘Julie is beside herself at being unable to arrange for a passport. You are not going to leave me in here.’ Matt was full of assurances that he would do everything possible to help, in fact he said he would ‘work night and day’ until I was free. That was the last contact we had for nearly a month.
JULIE
Rishi turned up as arranged with a new Emirati. They told us the cost was now AED80,000 in total: 50,000 for the Emirati, whose name was Nassar, and 30,000 ‘fixer’s fee’. I’d managed to get the cash together for ‘yesterday’s Emirati’, so Nassar went to the bail clerk to hand over his passport and I watched anxiously until it was done. I was handed a copy of Nassar’s passport receipt and we handed over the money.
Back in the building I took my passport, Marcus’s passport, Nassar’s receipt and the bail bond receipt to the clerk. Eventually receipts were produced, signed and stamped and the bail release papers were handed to us. If we rushed, we could get Marcus out in just a few hours.
WAYNE McKINLEY
There were so many steps to go through: first, paperwork at the court that needed to be signed by the prosecutor. Then into the car and over to Jebel Ali Police Station, because that was officially the station that processed Marcus’s arrest. At every step we had to wait and wait. We’d started it all at 8 a.m. and it wasn’t until nearly 3 p.m. that he got out. We all felt like we were going to burst with anticipation. Karen was the only one calm enough to drive. It just didn’t seem real.
MARCUS
I knew Julie was meeting Rishi and I tried to put off calling her as long as I could. When I couldn’t wait any longer I called her — she had done it! She was already at Jebel Ali Police Station. My release was underway. I broke down, but this time with relief and happiness. I hardly dared believe that in a few hours I would be out. It was Monday, 26 October 2009, exactly nine months since I had been locked up. I had to call Julie back ten minutes later to assure myself it was real.
Over the PA came the words I had longed to hear: Marcus Australia — afraaj, release. I quickly packed up my loose journal pages and the photographs and poems that had been my solace. Jose and Ibrahim, two Indians whose bunks were near mine, rushed over and we hugged. I left my books, the biscuits I had, my towel and shoes for them to use, we hugged again and a guard led me down to collect the bags I had brought in five months ago. I quickly changed out of prison whites into my own clothes, thumbprinted my release form and was taken outside — for the first time, not in handcuffs — where a van was waiting to drive me through the compound to the main gate.
It was just a few hundred metres but in typical Dubai fashion it took so long to get there — more than an hour, passing through multiple sets of gates. My body was thrumming with tension. Finally we were through. I got out of the van, it drove off and I was free.
Julie, Wayne and Karen were waiting; smiling and crying at the same time. Julie and I longed to rush into each other’s arms, but even though we were married, we were in a high-security government area and this might have been deemed ‘inappropriate behaviour’. The last thing we needed was any excuse for them to lock me back up again. Wayne was fair game though, and we gave each other a fierce bear hug. We took a quick photo, got into the car, and got out of there.
Julie and I sat in the backseat gripping each other’s hands. I called my parents and then Mr Ali, thanking him for all he had done. Julie text-messaged Tony and Justin, her family and friends at Showtime. They had all stood by us through everything.
When we arrived at the villa Indrani was waiting outside: more big hugs. Before we went inside she gave Wayne a coconut and told him to smash it as hard as he could onto the ground in a good-luck ritual. We went in and Dudley was there, keen to investigate the company, but reacting to me as he would to a stranger. I had often played out this moment in my imagination while I was in prison. I lay down on the small red carpet in the study, just as I had pictured myself doing, and called his name. He stared at me, but continued to hold back. I called, ‘Pup pup�
��, just as I had when he was tiny. At this he ran over to me, smelt me and recognised me. I cuddled him, trying to let myself believe it was true: we were all back together.
WAYNE MCKINLEY
Marcus got on Skype and called Mum and Dad for a longer conversation. I still get emotional thinking about it. I’d been back in Australia for Father’s Day the previous month. It seemed likely to be Dad’s last one, and there were tears shed about Marcus that day. But now Dad had lived long enough to see Marcus get out of prison. It was very emotional for him, but this time the emotions were good ones.
MARCUS
When I was locked up I’d often fantasise about having a beer. There was champagne waiting and we popped it and poured out glasses, but I couldn’t drink any and neither could Julie. We were just wrung out. At a certain point, Wayne, Karen and Indrani all tactfully left, giving Julie and I time alone. We sat outside together and reflected a little on what had happened. We knew the battle was far from over, but it felt like we had survived the worst of the ordeal. We were here together under the starry sky.
Chapter 18
A CRUEL FARCE
JULIE
There was still so much to do before our next court date, 17 November. Nearly every week Marcus, Mr Ali and I would go over all the documents I had compiled to ensure we had everything and it was all in order. Marcus’s release had taken a lot of pressure off; we both started eating a bit more, though neither of us could sleep properly. We treasured the fact he’d survived so far.
A fortnight after his release I got a phone call from Rishi, the fixer who had got us the passport. He said that Nassar wanted more money for the use of his passport.
I said, ‘But we had an agreement. And there is no more money.’
He said, ‘Then he wants his passport back.’
My heart-rate shot up. I couldn’t breathe. I ended the call, saying again, ‘No, we had an agreement’, but Marcus and I were both frightened and angry. This was so wrong, so unfair. But if Nassar went to the courts and told them he was withdrawing his passport, Marcus would be thrown back in prison.
Over the next couple of weeks I got more of these calls from Rishi, as well as text messages. Sometimes he just demanded money, sometimes he claimed Nassar needed it for his rent or because his father needed medical treatment. Then one day Rishi called and said, ‘Look, I don’t even know why I’m dealing with this, this is between you and him’, and he then dropped out of the picture.
Unfortunately, the demands continued, but now they came directly from Nassar. I kept stonewalling him, but it was so unnerving. We’d had such a tiny window of relative peace.
WAYNE MCKINLEY
It was a big, big high when we got Marcus out. But there was a big come-down afterwards. Months of feeling frustrated and hating everything about what was being done to Marcus, months of feeling we couldn’t trust anybody, that everyone had some ulterior motive, really took a toll on me.
I started drinking too much, ‘self-medicating’. We’d come home from the courts or meeting with the prosecutor or whatever it might have been that day and I’d try winding down with a couple of beers. Over the months that turned into more than a couple and then vodka and Coke. I wasn’t sleeping. We’d be on the computer till 11 p.m. or midnight every night, then because of the time difference I’d be speaking to my friends in Australia after that. And we’d have to get up the next morning at six and start it all again. I’d gulp down Red Bulls and coffee to keep going.
Like everyone involved I wasn’t eating properly. So many days I had cheese and biscuits at 6.30 in the morning and something for dinner at eight and nothing in between. By the time Marcus got out I was already a mess.
I’d had to force myself to go back to Dubai after that September visit home. I’d lost my job by being away, I lost a good relationship. Mum and Dad were at home coping with the cancer and Dad was running out of options; they were about to stop chemo. Dubai was just a place of misery to me. I remember standing on the balcony of my room in Julie’s house looking out towards Dubai city as dust storms came in. It’s so far gone from reality, that place, I might as well have been on another planet.
And now Marcus was out, but that wasn’t the end. We still had to go through the court process to get Marcus found not guilty. And Marcus was, well . . . it was like working for the worst boss in the world. Nothing you did was good enough. After he got out of prison, I slept in a few days, and he wasn’t having it. He’d come and wake me up at a quarter to seven because that’s the system. There was this massive volume of material to arrange for the court, and if I messed up a date or a timeline I’d pay for it. After everything he’d been through and was still going through I completely understood why he was wound so tight, but it didn’t make it easier.
At the beginning of November I went back to Australia for Dad’s birthday. I was home for four days, then back on the plane again. I only lasted three weeks. I ended up with hypertension and anxiety. I was having severe panic attacks. Rosemary said, ‘Get him out of there.’ So they put me on a plane home and I just dropped out for three years. From having been so involved in the case, I just dropped out of sight and didn’t communicate with anybody. I broke under the strain of it all.
MARCUS
I was out of prison but still trapped in the middle of a false accusation. It was impossible to focus on anything other than the case, though there were other, constant anxieties: Julie was supporting us both and I couldn’t do anything to contribute. I wasn’t in any state to work, but even if I had been I was prevented from doing so by the fact that I was still an employee of Nakheel — albeit a suspended one. My residency visa didn’t allow me to work for anyone else and I had been warned that the authorities would be looking for any excuse to return me to prison, including any bail breach. That was the biggest fear — being sent back.
I’d drop Julie at work and then go for what I called my ‘crazy walk’ around the marina, trying to get my head straight often in 40-plus temperatures. Then I’d come home, have a shower and trawl through the online media to see if there was anything that mentioned the case, then sift through all the case documents and evidence that Julie had been able to get hold of. By that time it would be 5 p.m. or after in Australia and I could call John Sneddon and talk about anything I’d found.
JOHN SNEDDON
I was booked to go to my brother’s wedding in Northern Ireland in November and offered to change my ticket to fly back through Dubai. The idea was for me to meet Julie and we would see if I could get in to visit Marcus in prison. But of course by the time I got there, he was out on bail.
We arranged to meet at one of those English/Irish pubs underneath a five-star hotel on the beach. The Australian press had got hold of a couple of photos of Marcus from about five or ten years earlier, so I knew more or less what he looked like.
I saw this couple walk in holding hands. They were very affectionate towards each other, very much in love. And they looked quite relaxed. I thought, well that can’t be them, but it was. We spent a couple of hours just talking. I liked them. Marcus and I actually have a lot in common so we get on very well, and I just felt a connection to the both of them.
JULIE
At the next court hearing we expected Mr Ali would have an opportunity to ask questions of Mohammed Mustafa, the head of the Dubai Financial Audit Department who had built the case against Marcus. But Mustafa didn’t show up. I couldn’t believe he’d be allowed to get away with that, but Mr Ali said that’s how it was in Dubai.
The main witness in the case was David Brown. He showed up with his wife and with Sunland’s Soheil Abedian and his son Sahba. I was stunned, thinking, ‘Why are they here? Have they come to mock us?’ Their lawyer stood with our lawyers at the front of the court and the judge let him speak. Because it was all in Arabic we had no idea what was going on but we later learned that Sunland’s lawyer had lodged another civil claim — in Dubai this time — against Marcus, Matt, Anthony and Angus and were trying to add
other people to their claim.
MARCUS
Not long after I was released on bail we got a call from Eric Campbell, a reporter for the ABC-TV program Foreign Correspondent. Eric said he wanted to meet and discuss the possibility of filming an interview.
We agreed to at least have a conversation, so we met Eric and producer Ian Altschwager in a café. Over coffee they said they were planning a show on Dubai and the aftermath of the GFC that included us. After thinking about it overnight we said that they could film us but we couldn’t do an interview because anything we said could be interpreted as being critical of Dubai and that could result in me being sent back to prison, or even additional charges. The mood in Dubai was hyper-sensitive, as the post-GFC crash continued to see local and international companies failing.
About six months later we agreed to an interview but only if they held off airing it until the case was settled and we were free back in Australia and safe — which we thought might be another six months away. They committed to the plan.
The interview they filmed on their next visit ended up being the first of probably ten. Every so often as Eric, Ian and their cameraman Dave Miller were en route to do a story they would detour through Dubai, catch up with us and film a bit more. It was obvious that as well as finding the story very interesting they really started to care about what was happening to us. We thought at worst if I was going to be found guilty of a crime I didn’t commit there would be something to show how unjust this was — a kind of insurance for us.