Doing hard time in foreign jails

SHANE Kumm sat knee-deep in water in an overcrowded cell for three days after monsoon rains flooded Pakistan's Lahore prison four months ago.

Kumm, 34, has been an awaiting-trial prisoner for two years since he was arrested at Lahore airport for possession of cocaine worth an estimated R5-million.

He now faces up to 25 years in jail. His uncle, Henri Jason, said Kumm often goes to bed hungry. "He's got to work for food. If you're an awaiting-trial prisoner and you don't have family, you don't eat."

In another case, unemployed Tessa Beetge was promised a job and given a ticket to Colombia. Three years later she is sharing a cramped prison cell with three inmates, getting boiled pig snouts, tails and ears for lunch and supper.

Her parents, Marie and Swanie Swanepoel, said their daughter was living in "absolute hell". Beetge, 33, was arrested at São Paulo airport, carrying a 9kg block of raw cocaine worth about R3-million. She is now serving a seven-year jail sentence.

Nigerian Frank Nabolisa and Sheryl Cwele, former wife of State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, have been sentenced locally to 12 years' imprisonment for recruiting Beetge as a drug mule.

A Durban mother who does not want to be identified is out on parole after serving two years of an eight-year jail term for drug trafficking in Venezuela. The 43-year-old has to serve four more years of parole in Venezuela.

In an e-mail, she said her first night in prison was a nightmare. "I was taken to a little hole of a prison. After a few moments, a warder approached my cell, reeking of alcohol. He had only a towel around his waist and I thought he was going to rape me."