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Steve Bryant found out in the worst possible way how
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an archaic and unfair piece of Moroccan law can make a criminal out of an innocent victim. Nicky Clarke talks to the driver released after 10 years in captivity, whose sentence was actually increased on appeal.
The last 10 years of Steve Bryant's life have been a living nightmare. Incarcerated in a Moroccan prison cell he would wake up every morning to find either a Moroccan huddled under his blanket for warmth or that rats had eaten his food during the night. His skin crawled with every imaginable creepy crawly— fleas, crabs, head lice—and his arms still bear the scars of cockroach bites.
Bryant, a 48-year-old owner-driver from Waltham Forest, was convicted in 1993 of attempting to smuggle 3,187kg of cannabis resin out of Tangiers, Morocco, in a load of frozen squid. lie has always protested his innocence, and there is strong evidence to support Bryant's claim.
He was released from prison one month ago after receiving a royal pardon from the King of Morocco, who released 9,500 prisoners and reduced the sentences of 38,500 others to celebrate the birth of his baby son. Ironically. Bryant only had a few months of his 10-year sentence left to serve.
The father of four spent his sentence in four different prisons, in appalling conditions. He has slept on a concrete floor, shared two toilets with 149 other people, been made to squat for two hours and undergone four hunger strikes to protest against the unbearable conditions The last two years were spent in a high security prison alongside Moroccan murderers, terrorists and paedophiles.
On Friday 9 May, Bryant was washing his clothes when guards walked in and told him he could leave. "I dried my hands; I wasn't excited. I was just so pleased to be leaving those people behind." he says.
The nightmare
The nightmare began on a Thursday, during Ramadan—the month-long Muslim religious festival of fasting and prayer. "Because it was a holiday, there was hardly any traffic around so there was just a skeleton crew on the ferry. I stood at the back of the truck while they were digging holes in the cartons of squid, then the guy rushed off and returned with two Customs officers. I was grabbed tightly by the wrist and I knew something was wrong," says Bryant. He never saw his MAN 19.336 again.
The next day, he was taken back to the factory where he had loaded up, which manufactured crystal chandeliers and only had a small freezer containing boxes of squid.
The police found cartons the same as the ones on Bryant's truck, and two bags containing something suspicious.
In court on Saturday morning, Bryant was told that he was merely a witness and that he'd be released on Monday. He finally got a translator on the Saturday night when he made a full statement to the police—without a lawyer present—and learned from them that they had been after the owner of this factory for the last five years.
After witnessing police officers beating the factory owner, he spent Saturday night in a cell with him. "I never got beaten. The police knew I'd been set up," says Bryant.
But in the eyes of the law, this counted for nothing. Nor did the fact that his CMR papers— Morocco is a consignatory to CMR regulations— were all in order: he had not signed the part that declares the driver is responsible for his load.
Bryant was convicted on a simple,
uncompromising principle of Moroccan law which places responsibility on truck drivers for the contents of their trailers.
Bryant was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment and ordered to pay a £3,500 fine. But after studying the Moroccan Constitution, Bryant discovered that the maximum sentence for a trial in a civil court is five years.
During his appeal trial seven weeks later, his sentence was increased to 10 years and the fine increased to £20,000. "So much for just being a witness," he says.
And to rub salt into the wound, Bryant got hold of an internal fax (dated 4 April 1997) in which the Foreign Office admits that it was unwilling to challenge this established legal principle of driver responsibility in case it was asked to help other British truck drivers.
Bryant says he knows of cases where the Foreign Office has Intervened and helped people secure their release or transfer back to the UK, and he is outraged by this discrimination.
"My bitterness is focused against the British authorities, not the Moroccans, because they did nothing for me. They helped transfer other prisoners. I'm a truck driver, and they don't help truck drivers, do they?" he says. Consequently, he is planning to mount a legal case to sue the Foreign Office for falling to help him get released.
Is such strong positive thinking unusual for a man who's only known freedom for a month after such a long time in prison?
"I don't know how not to fight. I found a strength in me that I didn't know I had. You don't accept anything when you're Innocent. I've learned to be laid back and patient and I want to Ant to normal life as quickly as possible."
His own way
Despite living an institutional lifestyle for 10 years, his independence immediately shines through. He made his own way back to the UK in the middle of May after refusing an escort and despite feeling nervous before the journey.
"I've spent years jogging and playing football in prison. I'm not coming home to mope around," says Bryant. He feels uncomfortable accepting the generous hospitality of his friends, who are putting him up until he can find somewhere to live.
He says that, apart from some cartilage problems with his knees and some stomach problems due to the appalling food in prison, he is generally in good physical shape having lost over seven stone during his prison stay.
On the emotional front, however, he is a little more hesitant. Both of Bryant's parents died while he was In prison and he found great comfort in John McCarthy's autobiography Some Other Rainbow.
"I read this as my mother was dying and I wanted to know how he handled things. I went to Waltham Abbey last week where Mum is buried, but I can't face the grave yet. I'm not ready,'' says Bryant.
He Is aware that he appears calm on the outside at the moment but admits this may change as life In Essex unfolds. Bryant's relief at being back home among his four children is palpable: "I feel I've got my membership of the human race back again,' he says.
Welcome home, Steve.