Pubdate: Sun, 5 Dec 1999 Source: Observer, The (UK) Copyright: Guardian Media Group plc. 1999 Contact: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ MERCY DENIED TO JAILED BRITONS IN DRUG MIX-UP 'Al Wuthba prison is a hell hole. I know that even when he gets home, my son will never be the same again' Tracy McVeigh The lush desert oasis should have been a perfect holiday destination. Instead, it has become a prison for two Britons arrested on drug and alcohol charges and, say their relatives, abandoned to their fate by uncaring British authorities. Lynn Majarkas, 44, head teacher of a special needs school, had not had a holiday in 10 years, so she jumped at the chance to take a last-minute bargain break in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, with boyfriend Ian Bamling, 30, the school's welfare official. They flew off in October 1998 but have yet to return. The couple are now incarcerated in a stinking, overcrowded prison where the toilet is an open sewer, the food is more often than not infested by maggots, and floggings are common. The families of the pair returned to the UK from the UAE in despair last week, after a fruitless attempt to plead for clemency. Majarkas and Bamling were arrested at Abu Dhabi airport for possessing a bottle of duty-free wine, one of gin and three grammes of cannabis, which warrants no more than a police caution in the UK. But in the Muslim UAE, where a licence is needed for alcohol and drugs laws are strict, the offence brought a four and a half years' jail sentence. The families' options seem to have run out. The Foreign Office will not intervene in another nation's legal system, even though the prison conditions have been condemned by Amnesty International as 'inhumane and degrading'. The British Embassy in Abu Dhabi is equally powerless to help. Both families, and the parents of Majarkas's former pupils, appealed last month to Prince Charles, who was on a tour of the UAE. His advisers said it was a matter for the British Government. But Bamling's family fear there is a lack of political will because of the UK's lucrative business relationship with the UAE. In 1998 Britain exported pounds 1.56 billion of goods and services there, and trade is at record levels. The couple were in prison for a year before their conviction two weeks ago. They got six months for having the alcohol, and four years for drug trafficking. They denied the cannabis, worth less than pounds 15, was theirs. Ronald Magee, Bamling's flatmate in Hounslow, West London, who owned the suitcase in which the drug was found, sent an affidavit to the court admitting the cannabis was his. He used it to ease his arthritis and had left it in the case after his own holiday. Bamling's mother, Sally Durham, a 52-year-old nurse from West Yorkshire, told The Observer how she made a desperate tour of the palaces of the state's sheikhs over several weeks, begging them to use their power to obtain mercy. 'We were treated very well and still hope for a show of generosity,' said Mrs Durham. 'I have to respect their laws, but I want to have my family reunited and this will be a second heartbreaking Christmas for me. 'Abu Dhabi is like a fairytale place, wealthy with spotlessly clean streets,' she said. 'Then 45 minutes away in the desert is Al Wuthba jail, a hell hole where my son rots.' The prison, built for 800 inmates, houses 3,000. The humidity is overwhelming as temperatures outside reach 50C (122F). The cell doors cannot be shut at night because too many bodies are competing for space to sleep on the cockroach-infested concrete floor. Fellow inmates are regularly flogged and Bamling has witnessed rape and suicide. The body of a young man who hanged himself was left to swing in view of other prisoners for several hours before guards cut him down. Bamling is suffering from insomnia and malnutrition and his mother fears for his sanity. Both British prisoners are said to be deeply depressed. 'I know that even when he gets home, Ian will never be the same again,' she said. The UAE has a fearsome reputation for rough justice. In recent years things have got worse, says Amnesty, with floggings given out for speeding and begging, hand amputations reported for theft, and death sentences for drug and sex offences. Richard Bunting of Amnesty said: 'It is a bleak picture and things have been getting worse. The prison conditions are barbaric, and prisoners have been stripped and lashed in the courtroom immediately after sentence.' But the couple's pounds 200 bargain holiday did not come with a warning. The alcohol laws are confusing - they bought their bottles in the airport's duty-free shops, yards from where they were arrested, unaware they needed a licence to do so. Majarkas has resigned from the job that she was devoted to at Bedelsford School in Kingston-upon-Thames, south-west London, aware that it may be 2004 before she can come home. The day after she was sentenced, her 70-year-old mother, Gladys Barr, visited her in the prison. 'I'm just in shock,' her daughter told her, before being led away at gunpoint. 'I can say I aged 20 years in one day. I walked from the court like an old woman.' - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck