Prison diaries: Kenyan drug convicts send remorseful letters from Hong Kong jails

“I have never wanted or intended to accept punishment for the mistakes I did not do. I was innocent and I wanted to tell the world how innocent I was. I have made several attempts to prove this to the world, but it is short-lived because I have no strong evidence to defend myself.”

This is part of a letter from a 23-year-old Kenyan woman who is on remand at a Hong Kong Prison, where she has served time for almost one year and a half awaiting trial.

Like 52 other Kenyans, Anne Juma (not her real name) has been languishing in prison in the far east country for trafficking in drugs.

She requested not to be named because she is yet to face trial.

She is among about 40 Kenyans who are serving up to 24 years in prison for drug-related charges.

Ms Juma’s letter is one of several others Kenyan prisoners have written and given to Fr John Wotherspoon, an Australian Catholic priest working with African prisoners in Hong Kong.

The priest, who has lived in Hong Kong for 29 years is the driving force behind a campaign to encourage convicted drug smugglers to write letters home and spread awareness about the perils of bringing narcotics into Hong Kong.

Ms Juma’s is one such letter which Fr Wotherspoon emailed to the Daily Nation on request.

A common stand in most of the letters is a claim by the convicts that they are victims of trickery orchestrated by accomplished drug traffickers operating in major cities around the world.

Most of the convicts claim they were arrested after being tricked into carrying drugs by people who target vulnerable poor women to ferry them across customs’ desks at international airports.

“I was arrested by the customs and excise officers at the Shenzen Bay Control Point as I was coming from Mainland China on January 29 last year,” Ms Juma says, adding that she is yet to face trial because for one and a half years she has pleaded not guilty for trafficking in drugs because she believed she could prove her innocence.

“I was only used by people who have no consideration for other people. Tricky and heartless people who do not mind throwing another person in harm’s way to make themselves rich.

“No one will ever believe me. The truth will remain with me even after all the attempts of trying to show how I was used have fallen on deaf ears,” Ms Juma says.

TRICKED BY LOVER
On the day she wrote the letter, she decided to plead guilty so as to benefit from a term discount, stipulated under Hong Kong laws, which reduce prison terms by a third for defendants who plead guilty.

“To say the truth, it has not been easy, my ordeal has affected me emotionally, physically, mentally and psychologically and I have taken it upon myself to undergo psychological counselling in the prison,” she says.

In the same prison is Jane Omondi who writes: “Remember my story, please don’t take it lightly. I insist you must be really careful with people who call themselves your friends, especially if they say that they can help you travel abroad.”

She makes an emotional plea to Kenyans to be careful about carrying bags whose contents they are not sure of.

“I am in prison in Hong Kong and my children are suffering just because someone tricked me into trafficking drugs,” she says and narrates how a man from a west African country living in Nairobi tricked her into a romantic relationship, gave her money and travelled with her all over the world.

“On the day I was arrested, I was with him at the Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Airport, where we had just arrived from Dubai,” she says.

The man had tricked her into carrying a cap that was inside a polythene bag in her hand luggage.

She only discovered that the cap had drugs wrapped inside it when police frisked her at the arrivals terminal.

“The man I was with had gone to the toilet and had asked me to proceed to the customs, saying he would catch up with me on the other side,” she says, adding that when she was arrested, she did not see the man again.

She suspects her friend must have proceeded on to claim his baggage and disappeared without a care as to what might have happened to her.

“I have been asking myself for how long he had used me to ferry drugs without my knowledge because we had been to several countries together,” she says, adding that she never suspected that the man who was a friend of her friend’s husband had been dealing in drugs.

She says she has served only four years of the 21 she was sentenced for, but she believes she would have won the case with a good lawyer.

She had no money or possessions when she was arrested because her lover was in control of the finances, submitting to her demands without question, including paying fees for her six-year-old son.

“If I have to write every day to save someone’s life and spare their freedom, so be it,” she says in the six-page letter that she gave to Fr Wotherspoon.

YOU WILL BE CAUGHT
Another Kenyan says in her letter written in a mixture of Kiswahili and English that Hong Kong prisons were better than those in Kenya because every inmate got well cooked food, clean linen and a spacious cubicle.

But she adds that there can never be anything better than being free and being able to take care of one’s family.

“The main problem I have right now is that my family has no idea where I am. I don’t even know whether I will ever see them again. I may die here,” she says, adding that she misses working hard for her mother and daughter.

She says life in prison is not easy since Africans were always being harassed, abused and beaten up by prisoners from other parts of the world.

“Hapa tuko (here we are ) allowed religious service two hours only in one month. I am alone in the prison I am in and so I cannot hold any service alone now,” she says.

“I miss my family, sukuma wiki, church service, Maina Kageni’s Classic 105 show and speaking freely,” she says, expressing hope that she would be extradited to Kenya to serve the remainder of her term at Lang’ata Women’s Prison in Nairobi.

Another Kenyan who identifies herself only as Winter asks Kenyans not to ever attempt ferrying drugs to Hong Kong because they would almost certainly be arrested owing to Hong Kong’s superior security equipment.

Another Kenyan who does not mention her name says she was lured into selling drugs by a woman she knew well.

“She went to school in Rusinga and lives in Homa Bay with her family till date. She is training 10 young girls on how to ferry drugs but she never does it herself. Please help stop her,” she says.

All the women in the Hong Kong prisons say they are optimistic they will be ferried back to Kenya to complete their jail terms under the recently enacted Transfer of Prisoners Act, which was signed by President Uhuru Kenyatta in October last year.

PRISON TRANSFER
The Head of Anti-Narcotic Police Unit, Mr Khamisi Masa, said he wasn’t aware how many people had been implicated in drug trafficking in the country.

He said it was now easier to identify drug traffickers with the introduction of high technology security equipment such as body scanners in all major airports.

“I cannot give details about the people we are investigating at the moment because it would likely jeopardise our investigations,” Mr Masa said.

Earlier in June this year, Attorney-General Githu Muigai said the Government was exploring ways of signing prison transfer agreements with other countries.

Many other Kenyans are serving jail terms or even death sentences in other countries, including Floviance Owino who was recently sentenced to death in China for smuggling drugs into Beijing.

China has some of the toughest penalties for drug-related offenders.

Although there is hope in the Transfer of Prisoners Act, Fr John Wotherspoon says it is important that Kenyan youth are made aware of the dangers of drug trafficking and use.

“I consider drug trafficking as modern-day slavery that targets the poor and most vulnerable people,” Fr Wotherspoon, who is working as a missionary chaplain for prisons in Hong Kong and China says, adding that he was in touch with more than 40 Kenyans, 100 Tanzanians, 20 Ugandans and dozens of Nigerians and South Africans in prisons in Hong Kong.