Deja Vu

February 6, 2009

Ever Been in a Turkish Prison?

Tags:

jail,

Philadelphia,

police,

prison,

Turkey

“Transport Company Loses Inmate on Way to Philly,” Associated Press, Feb. 5, 2009.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A private prison transportation company lost an attempted-murder suspect somewhere between Florida and Pennsylvania, leading to a search for the cuffed and shackled inmate and drawing complaints that such companies are poorly regulated.

The discovery Thursday was at least the second escape in six months involving an inmate being moved by Prisoner Transportation Services of America LLC. Still, industry critics said the major issue is not escapes, but mistreatment of inmates and poor traveling conditions.

Authorities searched for the suspect who escaped late Wednesday or early Thursday while en route from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sylvester Mitchell, 33, was being extradited to face attempted murder charges in Philadelphia, where he once lived. He was gone when the van arrived at 3 a.m. Thursday at a police station.

Midnight Express (excerpt), by Billy Hayes, with William Hoffer, 1977.
Busted for trying to smuggle two kilos of hashish out of Istanbul in 1970, Billy Hayes was incarcerated in a series of Turkish prisons and jails until he escaped in 1975.

I wanted to wait until after the curfew. Then I could be sure that other prisoners were not around. So I crouched and planned. I would swim out to the farthest fishing boat and untie its dinghy. And then row for the Asian shore.

Time passed slowly. I realized that I had to relieve myself. I crawled to a far corner of the bin and peed. The urine mingled with the rain puddles, then trickled back across the floor where I’d been hiding. If I changed my position I might be more exposed to a patrolling guard. So I had to squat in the liquid. The smell hardly bothered me anymore.

Time crawled now. I felt as if I’d been waiting for days. My watch showed only eight o’clock. I tried to relax. My thoughts flew to all the things I would do when I got out. I thought of Lillian. I thought of Mom and Dad. I imagined myself walking down a street in a city. Any city. A free man. I was so close. I had to make it.

A noise! Footsteps. I didn’t dare breathe. A guard moved up the pathway toward the bins. I could hear him stop next to my hiding place. A bright orange glow flared up, flickered in the wind and went out. The guard coughed. Then he moved on.

The rain began again. It soaked me to the skin. The wind was icy. I huddled in the bottom of the bin and waited.

Finally my watch showed ten-thirty. I eased my head up over the top of the bin and listened. The sounds of the storm filled the night. I took a couple of deep breaths and raised one leg over the edge of the bin.

What was that?

Quickly I dropped back down inside. I huddled against the wall. Off in the distance a dog barked. I thought of the guard tower and its machine guns.

I waited another ten minutes, listening. Again I poked my head over the edge of the bin and looked through the driving rain. Then lifted one leg up. Again I thought I heard a noise and dropped back down. I shivered in fear.

I decided it must have been my imagination. My hands shook. I wondered if I really had the nerve to go through with this.

For a third time I gathered my courage. I took several deep breaths. “All right,” I said to myself. “All right. Let’s just go.”

The bank down to the harbor was covered with a mixture of broken stones and rotting tomato pulp. The earth was muddy and puddle. Slime covered me as I crawled carefully down the bank on my belly. I was in the open, exposed to the searchlight. Each time it passed over I dug deep into the slime. I lay motionless. I prayed.

Slowly I worked my way down to the bank. Now for the hard part. The first fifty yards of water lay directly in front of the guard tower. I could see one soldier in it operating the searchlight. Another paced quietly with a machine gun. I was thankful for the noise of the wind and waves. Even so, I would have to be careful.

I slipped into the cold water. Above me the searchlight moved across the harbor. I pushed off from the shore, my heart pounding with the knowledge that my escape, so long dreamed of, had begun, and that there was no going back now. I had committed myself.

I swam slowly, afraid to splash. The heavy clothes weighed me down. A wave caught me in the face, driving salt water down my throat. I fought back a cough. I tensed for the bullets to rip into my back….

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