The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare (40 page)

Inside, I said hello to my father. He was seated at the table in the kitchen where he always sat, the telly up at 100 decibels as usual. ‘It’s great to see you, son,’ he said. It was wonderful to see the pair of them still alive. I doubt I would have, had my ‘holiday’ in Venezuela not been cut short.

Billy was supposed to stay the night, but he got a taste of being home and wanted to go all the way so we put him on a train for the trip. His journey wasn’t quite over.

* * *

I buried myself away for a few weeks. I didn’t feel up to running around and seeing everyone – even my kids. I put a portable TV up in my old bedroom in my parents’ house and that’s where I passed the time – up there on my own. I wasn’t ready for the big world yet.

Finally I came out of my shell. The day after Christmas I went to the local pub where I usually met up with my mates every year. It was all hugs and back claps when I walked in. Dano, my son, suddenly arrived and we had a long embrace – but there was no sign of my daughter, Katie. That would have to wait. I knew there were bridges to be built.

For more than two years it had been my goal to get home and get away from Los Teques and Venezuela. It wasn’t all easy being home, though. The nightmares of that world followed me. For months I couldn’t sleep properly. I kept having one nightmare where dark-skinned people were holding a machete over me ready to chop my head off. When the blade fell I’d wake up in a sweat. In another recurring dream I was arrested in an airport with my suitcase. When the cops went to search it I was sure there were no drugs in it; then when they opened it it was full of white bags of coke. Again, I woke up in a sweat.

I went to a local doctor and he prescribed me sleeping tablets. He later referred me to a hospital consultant when I wanted to continue with the tablets. I told the consultant about all the killings, stabbings and shootings in Los Teques. He said I was suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, like soldiers get on the front line. He said he could see I was trying to rebuild my life and approved a repeat prescription of the tablets, which I took for months.

Not long after my visit to the consultant, I was rushed to hospital one morning, bleeding heavily from my rear end. I was immediately operated on, and five cysts, each the size of an egg, were removed. My back passage was damaged – probably both from hiding condoms stuffed with cash up there and from being gang raped by the Venezuelan anti-drugs cops. I still carry the anger with me over that. Anger and shame. But it’s nice to finally tell others, and not bottle it up. This will be the first time it comes out – to my family, my son and daughter, and everyone. It’ll be like therapy for me. To finally rid me of the shame – shame that I shouldn’t feel. It’s the animals in soldiers’ uniforms who should feel like that, not me; and I want the world to know what’s happening in that justice system in Venezuela. That there is no justice. No one deserves what happened to me on that horrible night. Anyone who thinks I did, I’d tell them they are mad.

When I got home I started to worry I might have caught some sexually transmitted disease from the guards. I got checked for HIV and got the all-clear, but I was told it could take up to five years for something to show up. I think I’ll be OK, though, and it’s not something I dwell on.

One thing I’m sure about after getting home is that I won’t take coke again. I won’t go near it. After two years of abuse to my system from snorting a few lines most nights so I could get to sleep (we were sure it was mixed with horse tranquilliser), I couldn’t look at coke again. I’d get sick. I hardly even drink now, either. I can barely put a pint down my neck. A few beers and I’m exhausted, and it’s home to bed for an early night.

I was worried for a while that officials from Venezuela would come after me for going on the run. That they’d ask the Irish authorities to send me back to finish my sentence. Not now. I’m not looking over my shoulder any more. I’ve served my time as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, there’s no extradition treaty between Venezuela and Ireland – and even if there was, I doubt the Venezuelans would be bothered about me. They have bigger problems.

I never again heard from the gang that hired me to go to Venezuela – and I don’t want to. A mate contacted them after I got banged up because they said they would pay the ten grand for the run, whether I got caught or not. That was the deal. Soon after, the gang contact changed his phone number. I don’t care. I want nothing to do with them. I could be angry with them, but I’m not. I’m more angry with myself for being so stupid.

Soon after getting home I had a look around for some plumbing work. I rang all my contacts on the old construction crew I used to work with. No one called me back. There were no jobs, nixers, nothing. Ireland was in the depths of recession.

I signed up with the local job centre and they put me on a start-your-own-business course. There’s not much work in plumbing, with the construction industry the way it is, so I put my thinking cap on and branched out into offering general DIY services, from painting to installing radiators and so on. I’ve only got a few jobs so far, but it’s a start. Some day in the future I hope to have a decent income – till then I’ll have to make do with little, like many. Still, Ireland in recession is a thousand times better than where I was.

My debts are still there. A few weeks after I got home, my father said, ‘You’d better check the biscuit tin, son.’ It was full of letters from the bank over the loan and from the finance company for the work van I had, which was repossessed after I got locked up. They were all looking for their money. The last letter was dated six months previously. I guess they’d lost interest in me. There were bigger fish to fry who owed millions and billions. I only owed about ten grand to the bank and a few thousand to the finance company – I’m only a tadpole, not a shark.

I’ll try to pay it some day, but I’m not stressed out about it. Not worrying over small things: that’s one thing I learned in Los Teques. I’m lucky to have my life and to be back with my family. That’s the most important thing to me now.

I got a package in the post a month or so after I got home. It was my laptop I’d smuggled into Los Teques. I’d left it with Father Pat before I fled Venezuela, telling him I was going to the coast for the weekend. Soon after I got home I emailed asking him to send it on to me. As always, he came good. Now I had my diaries back: more than 160,000 words from my daily writing while locked up. Phew, I thought, delighted I’d got my hands on them again. If I hadn’t, I couldn’t have written this book.

I’m still in touch with young Billy. Some time ago he heard me talking on the radio about my experience in Los Teques. He said it brought tears to his eyes. He’s a sensitive lad, Billy, and I’d say it’ll take him a while to get over that part of his life.

I was desperate to see Katie, my daughter. She was living with me when I left for Venezuela. I’d left her in the lurch when I got caught. Bridges had to be built. I sent her a few text messages after I got home. She replied, but she didn’t ask to meet. I didn’t want to invade her space and knew she probably needed more time, so I didn’t want to hassle her. A year after I got home, though, I texted her just before her birthday. ‘I missed your last two birthdays,’ I wrote. ‘It’d be nice to meet you for your 20th.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she replied. It was the best feeling. We met outside a restaurant soon after and had a big hug. I finally had my baby back in my arms – nearly three years after I last saw her. We spoke over lunch and I could see she was flying in her new career as a hairdresser. I was so proud of her. Seeing her was like the final piece of the jigsaw clicking into place. After that I never needed another sleeping tablet. The nightmares ended.

I’m still writing away. Keeping a diary kept me going in Los Teques. Writing is something I enjoy and would like to keep doing. And putting pen to paper to tell you my story helps me heal. All I ask is that you don’t judge me – and, like Katie, give me a second chance. Everyone deserves that.

FATHER PAT CONTINUES TO VISIT INMATES IN VENEZUELA’S PRISONS – both gringos and locals from his Caracas parish – putting himself in harm’s way to make life a little better for others. He was adamant his real name should not be used in this book, fearing the authorities would not allow him to continue his welfare work in the jails.

We’re still in touch and I hope we’ll be friends for life.

He has put me in touch with a British prisoner in Los Teques. I’m emailing him and plan to send him a small sum of cash to make things a bit better for him.

Viviana is still representing foreign prisoners, her honesty and hard work a breath of fresh air in an otherwise blighted system.

Billy is back with his family and looking for work, like most in Ireland.

Vito has returned to Italy, where he works in a successful family business.

After about a year on parole in Caracas, Bruce fled over the border to Colombia and soon after headed home Down Under.

Silvio returned to London.

Ricardo is back in Holland.

Roberto and Terry are still serving their time on parole in Caracas, as are most of the gringos I knew in Los Teques. Ruut, however, is still believed to be behind bars in another Venezuelan jail, stuck in some legal limbo.

Eddy was released six months after I got out on parole. I last heard he was back in Manchester, working in a fish and chip shop.

Un abrazo
to all of you.

‘It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.’

Nelson Mandela

Paul Keany spent more than two years in jail in Venezuela, held in some of the most appalling and dangerous prison conditions in the world. He maintains that he had no problem doing the time for his attempt to smuggle cocaine but that no one deserves what happened to him: he was raped by police officers, stabbed by an inmate, shot at by prisoners in cell-block gun battles and starved in forced hunger strikes over jail conditions and the painfully slow judicial process in Venezuela, where many are held for up to two years before going to trial.

In light of Nelson Mandela’s quote above, here we put Los Teques jail to the test, using the United Nations’
Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners
document as a benchmark.

1. All prisoners shall be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings.

Venezuela: FAILED. Paul Keany was raped by two National Guard anti-drugs officers while held in their custody for five days handcuffed to a staircase with no access to food or water.

9. Prisoners shall have access to the health services available in the country without discrimination on the grounds of their legal situation.

Venezuela: FAILED. Los Teques prison authorities repeatedly failed to provide Paul Keany with access to an ambulance to attend a hospital with severe head pains, despite having secured a court order for same.

9. (1) Where sleeping accommodation is in individual cells or rooms, each prisoner shall occupy by night a cell or room by himself . . .

Los Teques prison: FAILED. Paul Keany, along with most inmates in Los Teques, was forced to sleep on the floor in Los Teques for more than a year before buying the use of a bed from his cell-block boss.

12. The sanitary installations shall be adequate to enable every prisoner to comply with the needs of nature when necessary and in a clean and decent manner.

Los Teques prison: FAILED. Paul Keany was forced to share one toilet with up to two hundred inmates. Many had to defecate in plastic bags while held on the prison roof for up to eight hours during random cell-block searches by the National Guard.

22. (2) Sick prisoners who require specialist treatment shall be transferred to specialized institutions or to civil hospitals . . .

Venezuela: FAILED. Los Teques prison authorities repeatedly failed to provide Paul Keany with access to an ambulance to attend a hospital with severe head pains, despite having secured a court order for same.

63. (3) It is desirable that the number of prisoners in closed institutions should not be so large that the individualization of treatment is hindered. In some countries it is considered that the population of such institutions should not exceed five hundred. In open institutions the population should be as small as possible.

Los Teques prison: FAILED. Number of prisoners in Los Teques, an institution built for 350 prisoners, rose as high as 1,800, according to Paul Keany and campaign group Venezuelan Prison Observatory.

Abogado
: Lawyer.

Agua
: Literally means ‘water’, but in the context of this book it is slang for cops in navy-blue uniforms.

Asesinos
: Assassins.

Bolos
: Slang for Venezuelan currency, bolívares fuertes.

Bombas
: Bombs.

Buggy: A bed cordoned off with curtains to allow privacy for inmates and their wives on conjugal visits.

Causa
: Literally ‘cause’, but in the context of this book it means the sum of money the inmates paid to their wing jefe to protect them and defend the wing from attacks by other wing bosses. The money was used to buy guns, bullets and so on, but was also used for maintenance of the wing, for example, painting walls.

Colchoneta
: Long, thin cushions rolled out onto the floor of the wing and used by the inmates as mattresses to sleep on.