Pubdate: Mon, 1 March 1999
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: Guardian Media Group 1999
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Author: Jamie Wilson

TRUCKER'S FAMILY FIGHTS TO CLEAR HIS NAME

This week Stephen Bryant, a 44-year-old lorry driver, will begin his
sixth year in a Moroccan jail for a crime he swears he did not commit.

On March 3, 1994, Bryant, from Waltham Forest, north east London, was
on the homeward leg of a round trip that had taken him to Switzerland,
Spain and Morocco. After picking up his cargo in Morocco, Bryant
arrived at the port of Tangier with a lorry load of frozen squid. But
Bryant's vehicle contained an additional cargo: three and a half
tonnes of premium grade North African hashish. A cursory inspection of
the truck by customs officials revealed the contraband, and despite
protesting his innocence Bryant was arrested.

He was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in jail.

It was not until three weeks after his arrest, when Bryant's brother,
Peter, travelled to Morocco and found his truck impounded, that his
family realised anything had happened to him. 'We know he's innocent,'
his father, Peter Bryant, said last week. 'He just wouldn't do
something like that.'

Mr Bryant believes his son was set up. As customs officials swarmed
round Bryant's lorry, other trucks carrying drugs slipped through, he
claims. It was Bryant's third trip to North Africa, and he had not
been keen to go back. 'He got a call from the company asking him to go
to Morocco. He didn't want to go because he always got hassle with
customs, but the bloke said the pick-up was only 20 miles from the
port and he would be in and out in no time. But five years later and
he's still there,' Peter Bryant said.

Until last year Bryant was locked up in the notorious Tangier jail.
Sharing a cell with dozens of other prisoners, he had no bed and was
forced to sleep on a concrete floor. Twice during the last five years
he has gone on hunger strike to publicise his case. 'Steve is holding
himself together, but I can't get any help from anybody,' said his
father. 'If the [British] Government decided to do something, Steve
would be out of there in a week, but they are worse than useless.'

In 1997 Bryant was transferred to Rabat prison, where conditions are
better than in Tangier, but he still shares his cell with 40 other
inmates.

Bryant's mother, Sheila, who campaigned to free her son, died of
cancer two years ago. Since then his father, living off his pension,
has continued the campaign, scraping together the money needed to fund
his son's upkeep in jail. He has not seen Steve for three years.

'I send UKP30 a month to pay for his food and things. I've been out to
see him twice but I just can't afford to go again.'

Bryant is not the only European to have fallen foul of Morocco's drug
laws. 'Knowledge of possession of drugs is not a required ingredient
of the crime, therefore innocent carriers are convicted,' said Stephen
Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad. 'From the point of view of
Europeans, Morocco represents the biggest miscarriage of justice
problem in the world.'

There are more than 600 in Morocco's jails, the largest number of
European prisoners

outside Europe. 'Because of the way the legal system operates, general
experience would lead us to predict that there are at least 25
arguably innocent Europeans in Moroccan jails,' Mr Jakobi said.
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