Trapped: A Couple's Five Years of Hell in Dubai Read online

  DEDICATION

  To our lawyers John Sneddon and Ali Al Shamsi, who tirelessly stood by us, and to all of our friends and family who believed in us.

  The truth prevailed.

  FOREWORD

  I first met Marcus and Julie Lee in 2010 in a cafe in one of Dubai’s garish shopping malls. I left the meeting feeling physically ill from what they had told me.

  Their story — related warily and in confidence — was the ultimate nightmare of Aussies abroad. They had come to a boomtown to have an adventure and earn enough to buy a house back in Australia. Instead, Marcus had been falsely accused of a serious crime and they’d lost everything.

  I didn’t know the full details of the case, but Marcus and Julie struck me as fundamentally decent people. They were also terrified. Marcus had nearly died in prison while on remand and his release on bail was tenuous. The trial was going nowhere, and his chance of surviving another spell in jail was slim. They were desperate for help but couldn’t risk being interviewed on camera. They knew the authorities could be vindictive, and feared that if Marcus criticised Dubai publicly he might be convicted out of spite.

  Dubai has many good qualities, but a functional justice system is not one of them. Since oil was found in the 1960s Dubai has gone from a remote desert outpost to an Arab version of Las Vegas, minus the gambling. Yet it’s kept the archaic laws and practices developed when people lived in tents. Debt is still a crime. Cases drag on for years, often with a succession of judges. And the word of a foreigner means nothing against the word of an Emirati.

  The great danger to westerners is that Dubai looks so modern. Apart from the searing heat and chilling air-conditioning it doesn’t even feel like the Middle East. The high-rise towers, marinas and fake canals would sit nicely in the Gold Coast. The crowds of middle-class expatriates strolling through malls evoke a Brisbane suburb. Slick promotions suggest it’s a wonderful, safe place to do business. It’s not. A misunderstood email can see you charged with fraud. The outline of a breast on a cancer-awareness T-shirt can get you jailed. Behind the glitter, Dubai has a legal system from the Dark Ages.

  It was a year before Marcus and Julie took the risk of agreeing to let us film them. Their condition was that we didn’t show any of the material until they were safely home. Every six months or so, as we flew through Dubai en route to another story, we’d slip out of the airport with a small tourist camera and catch up with them. Sometimes they were hopeful, but usually the news was bad. As the years passed and their circumstances worsened, we began to wonder if they would ever get out.

  At times it felt uncomfortable to be spending so much time on two Australians when so many others were suffering an equal or worse fate. But as I learned more about Dubai, I saw how their case symbolised the plight of thousands who had no voice, chief among them the foreign construction workers who had come to make a living and been trapped in debt and misery. Marcus and Julie were determined that what happened in the courts and prisons of this faux-paradise should be known.

  For television, I could only show the broad brushstrokes of their extraordinary, almost unbelievable ordeal. It’s gratifying that they’ve found the strength to chronicle their journey. They have been though hell. I hope exposing the horrors can finally bring them peace.

  Eric Campbell,

  Reporter,

  Foreign Correspondent program,

  ABC TV

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Prologue

  CHAPTER 1 Finding a Way to Succeed

  CHAPTER 2 ‘Are You Interested in Dubai?’

  CHAPTER 3 The Size of the Challenge

  CHAPTER 4 A Shock to the System

  CHAPTER 5 ‘Dubai’s Economy is Different’

  CHAPTER 6 The Bubble Bursts

  CHAPTER 7 The Unravelling Begins

  CHAPTER 8 The Start of the Nightmare

  CHAPTER 9 Dropped off the Face of the Earth

  CHAPTER 10 Solitary Confinement

  CHAPTER 11 Secrets and Lies

  CHAPTER 12 ‘Relax, Take a Break’

  CHAPTER 13 Into the Fire

  CHAPTER 14 Riding the Rollercoaster

  CHAPTER 15 The Loss of Hope

  CHAPTER 16 Life in Hell

  CHAPTER 17 The Truth Will Prevail

  CHAPTER 18 A Cruel Farce

  CHAPTER 19 The Spider-web of Dubai

  CHAPTER 20 Learning to be Australian Again

  Photo Section

  Appendix

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  I used to believe that as long as I did the right thing everything would work out for the best. I operated on the principle that what happened to me was a consequence of my actions. Sure, there were things that no-one could control, such as natural disasters and freak illnesses. But barring random catastrophe, as long as I was determined enough, and worked hard and smart enough, I could make steady progress and improve my lot in life. Or so I thought.

  Clients and employers had often commented on my dedication and thoroughness. They liked what I did and the way I did it and I got a great sense of satisfaction from knowing I delivered what they needed. I was equally happy and fulfilled at home. I was married to a wonderful woman who shared my hard-working ethos and we were well on our way to achieving the goals we’d set ourselves.

  So how had it come to this? How had I ended up trapped in a Middle Eastern prison without charge, amid murderers and rapists? And now I was so sick that through my fevered delirium I made out voices speculating that if my temperature rose even a little more I might die. I hadn’t eaten for days, and even before that this ordeal had already cost me more than 10 per cent of my body weight. I was weak and in pain and helpless. Yet no-one came to my aid. Wearing just shorts and desperate to try to bring my temperature down, I crawled along the floor, passing in and out of consciousness, trying to remember to keep hold of my thin towel. I was so pathetic that even the terrifying ‘midnight crazies’ roaming the grimy corridor didn’t bother attacking me.

  After what felt like hours I reached my goal: the disgusting communal toilet and shower area at the end of the cells. As I collapsed in a foetal position I managed to dip the towel into the water and whatever else was in the washing trough. I just got the wet towel onto my head before I passed out on the filthy tiled floor. My last thought before the blackness descended was my darling Julie: if only I could hold her one more time.

  I had survived so much since this nightmare began but I felt as though I had reached the end. I didn’t expect to live through the night.

  I did live to see the morning, somehow, and eventually I got to hold Julie again. But even when I was finally released from jail our nightmare was far from over. It would be years before we left Dubai, the place we had come to with high hopes and a sense of adventure, which had become a hell on earth.

  What had I done to deserve this ordeal? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I hadn’t smuggled drugs or disrespected Islamic culture or driven drunk. As courts in both Dubai and Australia found, I was completely innocent of the crime I had been accused of. But having done nothing wrong was not enough to protect me.

  What happened to me shook my world to its foundations. It cost Julie and me everything for which we had worked so hard over so many years. Neither of us will ever be the same again.

  I saw humanity at its very worst. But I only survived to tell my tale because of people who represent humanity at its best. People, some of them strangers, who refused to give up until justice and truth had prevailed.

  Before January 2009 I was just an ordinary Australian. Every year thousands of other people just like me go overse
as in good faith for work. They assume that as long as they do no wrong their rights will be defended. I know better. If this happened to me, it could happen to anyone.

  Marcus Lee, June 2014

  Chapter 1

  FINDING A WAY TO SUCCEED

  MARCUS

  Until I was thrown into jail in Dubai, my life had run along planned and orderly lines. My wife, Julie, and I worked non-stop for more than twenty years trying to better ourselves and build a secure future. We started out with nothing — no money, no real education to speak of (at least, in my case), and slim prospects — but together we dreamed of something more and we set about working hard to make our dream a reality.

  We each grew up in the southern suburbs of Sydney. I never knew my birth father, Ray Lee, a professional golfer, but I inherited some sporting proficiency from him. I was still a baby when he and my mum, Carol, divorced. I lived with my maternal grandparents until Mum remarried when I was about six. Then our new blended family moved in together — me; Mum; my stepdad, Allan; and his son and daughter, Colin and Sharon, who were older than me. There were the usual settling-in issues you get with blended families but we got through the boundary-setting, initial suspicions and uncertainties, and settled down into normal suburban family life. My younger brother, Wayne, came along when I was twelve years old.

  I went to local schools where my lack of interest in what was being taught seemed to be matched by that of my teachers. As far as I could see they were watching the clock, willing it towards that end-of-the-day bell just as hard as I was. Along with many of my mates, I was told that working with my hands was about the best I could do so I should focus on getting a trade. The message we got was to keep our ambitions small and local; anything else was just kidding ourselves.

  Sport seemed to offer broader horizons, at least for a while. I was tall for my age and had a talent for basketball, soccer and rugby league. By age twelve I had made it up through the ranks into a national schoolboy basketball team, as well as playing representative soccer and league, pretty exciting stuff at that age. I made my first overseas trip as part of the basketball team when we toured New Zealand. As you’d expect, it was all very tightly controlled, with a lot of time travelling on coaches to games and only some sightseeing, but even so it was interesting to get a sense of the wide world out there waiting to be discovered. My illustrious basketball career tailed off not too long afterwards as I topped out at six foot (183 centimetres) while the other boys kept growing.

  I got out of school as soon as I could, leaving for good in 1984 at age fifteen without even waiting for the end of Year 10, though I did get a leaving certificate with an assessment mark after a visit from Mum to the principal. I found work straightaway, assembling filing cabinets, spray-painting and other things. I started an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic but then moved to the huge construction company Thiess as a labourer. My start in property was helping to build a new chemical plant for ICI in Sydney’s south.

  Soon afterwards I had my second, brief, overseas experience — three days at a resort in Fiji thanks to a mate who won a radio contest. Julie, meanwhile, was more adventurous, breaking out of the narrow confines of the area of southern Sydney known as the Shire and getting her first taste of travel at seventeen . . .

  JULIE

  I’m the youngest of four children, with a gap of thirteen years between me and the eldest. My parents were much older than a lot of my friends’ parents so they were pretty relaxed by the time I hit my teenage years; they’d seen and done it all before. Instead of being anxious about my wanting to go out and see the world, they encouraged it. Dad, who owned and drove a taxi, would talk to me about all the places he’d been as a Navy signalman, crossing the Atlantic, seeing the Mediterranean in the early years of World War II and travelling through Madagascar, Egypt, India, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific. I loved hearing his stories and I was keen to get out there and experience it all for myself.

  I was a bit of a nerd at school — I did well academically and maths was my favourite subject. I was very small compared to my peers, which added to my shyness. I took dancing classes right through my high-school years, studying ballet, jazz and tap, sometimes dancing six nights a week. I did well in Year 12 (where I was the only girl who took Three-Unit Maths) and qualified for university. The problem was I couldn’t decide what on earth I wanted to study.

  Whatever it would be, I wanted to live a little first. A friend, Kerrie Faux (nicknamed Fox), whose father lived in Toronto, Canada, said she was going to spend a couple of months at his place, and invited me to come along. I thought, ‘Why not? Life is about seizing opportunities,’ and leaped at the chance. A few years earlier Dad had put $1000 in savings bonds for me, and my parents loaned me a little more for the trip.

  We had a great time. On snowy nights Fox and I used to sneak out to the 24-hour donut shop to flirt with the local boys who hung out there. During the visit her dad took us on a road trip down to Disney World in Florida, and we saw a fair bit of the US on the way.

  All too soon it was time to come home. Even though I wasn’t going to uni immediately, I knew I had to find a job. But I well and truly had the taste for travel now. Back in Australia I took a public-service position. It was basic office work with not much of a future, but it paid very well and was perfect for the next couple of years, which were about partying, not careerplanning.

  At nineteen I made a New Year’s resolution to go back to dance classes. I was insecure and uncertain and it was very hard work, but I stuck at it and it started to get better. After a few months some friends and I, including Fox, heard about an audition for dancers to work in Japan. Again I thought, why not? Within a week the pair of us and two other friends had flown out of Sydney and were starting rehearsals. We did hear horror stories about what might happen to young dancers far from home, but we were sensible and careful and we had made sure the company that employed us was reputable.

  For the first six months we put on cabaret shows in hotels in Japan’s Chiba prefecture, not too far from Tokyo, then we had stints in Singapore and Malaysia. After a couple of months’ break back in Australia we set off again in 1985, first to rehearse in Perth then to Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, back to Japan for a further six months, then another long stint in South Korea. I was home for Christmas 1986, then did another six months in Japan. By that point, the appeal had worn off. I was no longer enjoying the work or the nocturnal hours; it was time to move on. I came home and looked for another office job.

  In October 1987, soon after I’d got back, I was out for a night on the town with some friends. We were in a nightclub and I happened to be standing not far from the DJ’s box when this really nice-looking guy with blond streaks in his hair came up and asked the DJ to play a song. As he walked past me I asked him what he’d requested. He said, ‘Addicted to Love’. I don’t know what possessed me, but I cheekily said, ‘I think I am now.’

  Marcus gets embarrassed whenever I tell that story; he calls it a tacky Australian 1980s courtship. Sure, our early years together featured more stonewash denim than I care to remember, but there’s no denying that something special happened that night. We both felt an intense connection right from the start. Within a month we were living together and we’ve hardly been apart since.

  There was a five-year age gap between us — I was the older one, at 23. If it had been the other way around no-one would have thought anything of it. People made a few dumb jokes about it in the early days, but it was never an issue for us. We felt that somehow, out of all the millions of people out there, we’d each found our soulmate. We were so happy to be together.

  Three months after that night, Marcus took himself off to my parents’ house, having only met them once at this stage, and asked my dad, Ron, for permission to propose to me. Startled, Mum said to him, ‘I thought you wanted to borrow the car!’ It took us more than a decade to actually go through the formal ceremony. Not because we had any doubts; our bond was so strong that a pie
ce of paper wasn’t going to make it any stronger. In every way that mattered, we already felt married.

  MARCUS

  There were so many things I loved about Julie. One of them was that, like me, she thought there was more to life than following exactly in our parents’ footsteps. Many of the people we had grown up with were already talking about having kids, getting a mortgage and settling down. But settling down from what, when we hadn’t really even begun to live? We weren’t rejecting all those things outright; there would be time for them later. But to go down that path at that point seemed to us to be giving up. The twentysomethings we knew were acting like they couldn’t wait to be fiftysomethings, entrenched in the predictability of suburban life. We were young. Surely there were things to experience first.

  We decided to head off and see for ourselves. We didn’t have more than the vaguest of plans — we would drive around Australia, supporting ourselves by finding work along the way. We were excited and optimistic because we knew that, whatever happened, we would be in it together.

  So six months after we met, I sold my car. It was a Sandman panel van, which I had been restoring for a couple of years. I made enough on the sale to pay off a credit card and a loan from my parents, and still have $2000 left over. Pooled with the money Julie had saved, we had a grand total of $4000. We weren’t worried. We’d make it work, somehow. We packed our clothes and camping gear into the ancient Toyota Corolla Julie owned, strapped a surfboard to the roof racks and headed north. Apparently as we drove off, Allan (technically my stepdad, but just ‘Dad’ to me) said to Mum, ‘I give them a few months then they’ll be back.’ It would be fourteen years before we came back to live in Sydney.

  We drove the 850 kilometres to the Gold Coast, where we intended to stay for a little while and build up some cash for the next leg of the journey. We rented a small, old, one-bedroom apartment at Burleigh Heads and enjoyed the sunny, warm, outdoors lifestyle.