Daniel Holmes: A Memoir From Malta's Prison: From a cage, on a rock, in a puddle...

by Daniel Holmes

  Published in 2020 by Lovin Malta

  lovinmalta.com

  Copyright © Lovin Malta 2020

  ISBN: 978999571896-1

  Project co-funded by the National Book Council, Malta Book Fund 2019 - 2020

  All rights reserved.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in whole or in part, including photographs, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author and the publisher.

  Min jistenna jithenna

  (He who waits is rewarded)

  – a Maltese saying

  For my beautiful and patient loving wife, and darling dear children, who I hope will never experience the solitude I have suffered.

  For my forgiving parents and strong sisters.

  For all who have loved and lost, wanted or been found wanting.

  For all who have gone and all those yet to come.

  For all the people who have stood by me and even those who haven’t.

  For change.

  FOREWORD

  The first time I saw Daniel’s face, it was on a protest placard calling for his freedom in 2013.

  It’s not often that a grassroots protest movement forms in Malta to demand justice for a foreigner, but Daniel’s case was something different, something too egregious to ignore, even for such generally laissez-faire people as the Maltese.

  Sentenced to over a decade in Malta’s Corradino Correctional Facility for growing cannabis in Gozo, his story became a clear miscarriage of justice for thousands of Maltese people – an example of what could happen to you if you fell into the hands of Maltese authorities.

  And it outraged people, galvanising them into taking to the streets and organising multiple demonstrations in Valletta demanding he be released from detention, with one event organised outside the capital’s court just five days before the verdict on his appeal was read out.

  However, this was a different time for the island, at the tail-end of a near quarter-century of conservative Catholic political rule.

  CIDs – plainclothes policemen – circled these demonstrations, filming the faces of protestors as Maltese authorities firmly ignored their calls. In public discussions about his case, Daniel was referred to as a drug kingpin, a real menace to Maltese society: he needed to be locked up.

  And so, Daniel remained in prison for years, just one of hundreds of foreigners locked up in Malta.

  He remained in jail, even as the use of cannabis was decriminalised in Malta in 2015, rendering his offence no longer a crime punishable by jail time. In 2017, Malta went a step further and legalised cannabis for medicinal use, allowing the plant to be bought from pharmacies against a prescription. And yet, Daniel remained locked up.

  God only knows how different the lives of Daniel and his family would have been if he had moved to Gozo in 2017.

  The first time I really saw Daniel’s face was in 2018, in the prison’s visitation room.

  We had never met – though I knew so much about him – and I couldn’t believe just how wide this man’s smile was.

  Surrounded by prisoners in a foreign land where he didn’t speak the language, he laughed as he described some of the traumatic things he was going through in prison, describing his numb-minding day-to-day with a glint in his eye and a cheeky grin. He was always ready with a witty comeback or a well-timed punchline.

  I admired his inner resilience, his ability to stay focused on his wife and daughters and remain happy when Malta’s authorities had done so much to break him. But he was still locked up, even though by then, Malta had begun to change.

  In the early hours of a warm morning in September, 2018, Daniel was bundled out of the prison with no prior public announcement, taken to the Malta International Airport, frogmarched to the front of the line for a Ryanair flight to Bristol (an English city not too far away from Cardiff, Wales, where Daniel’s family awaited him) and was quietly released from prison.

  Standing a bit behind him in that same line, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – Daniel Holmes’ release, finally. After all the demonstrations and meetings and speeches, court cases and debates, he was out.

  There was no fanfare, no public apology from the Justice Minister, no big press release; he was given a pat on the shoulder from a police officer and left standing alone in an airport hallway at 5 a.m.

  Just like the police had picked him up ignominiously, they had let him go. By the time the Maltese press had woken up, he’d be gone from the country, and no one would ever hear from Daniel Holmes again … at least, that’s Maltese authorities had hoped for.

  Thanks to our prior agreement, I boarded that flight, and Lovin Malta joined Daniel on his first day out of prison.

  And now, well over a decade since that fateful day when he was arrested in Gozo, Daniel will be telling his story, uncensored and in all its horrific glory.

  Maltese authorities took away a decade of this man’s life, saying he deserved the punishment. Read on, and decide for yourselves.

  Johnathan Cilia

  Journalist, Lovin Malta

  Author’s Note

  From a cage, on a rock, in a puddle is a story of life, death and love: darkness and light. My decision for this title is threefold. Firstly, it was mainly written from my prison cell on the rocky island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. Secondly, on every letter I wrote back home to my family, I used these words as my address to bring some levity to the situation. Thirdly, on an existential level, we are all inside the bubble of our planet living on a small percentage of land surrounded by waters that bring life. In the vastness of our universe the ratio is comparable to the title.

  This book spans 15 years in a fight against injustice and a battle for liberty. It is mainly narrative but also includes journal entries, photos, poems and a short story to give an inside view to the harrowing ordeal of two ordinary men and their families trapped in the archaic justice system of Malta.

  My daughter asked me the other day, ‘’Why did you go to prison?’’

  Even though I’ve answered her many times, I began to try and explain it to her once more. I tried to explain that I went to prison for growing the plant cannabis. A plant that is illegal in some countries and not in others. A plant that is quickly becoming the next super crop for pharmaceutical companies selling it for medication. She looked at me in total confusion, and I to her.

  I have heard that Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain something to a six-year-old, you really don’t understand it yourself.”

  It’s true I do not understand. I do not understand how so many countries in the world are now making billions due to the sale of cannabis products, while so many still rot in jails for the personal use of cannabis.

  Imagine my further confusion when I read these quotes from then Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, at the Cannabis Europa convention, less than a year after I had completed my 14-year torment under the government of Malta:

  “We see the production of medical cannabis as a progression within the life sciences sector, which already includes the production of pharmaceuticals, active ingredients, medical devices, testing and batch release operations, research and clinical work, dossier building and so much more.

  “By being the first in most of these areas, Malta is proud to be Europe’s island of innovation, where ideas are born, tried and tested, then shared with the whole world.

  �
��Since laying the rules in this specific bill, Malta Enterprise received 46 project applications, of which, 20 projects have been approved and issued with a Letter of Intent.

  “It is estimated that the approved projects are to invest over €110M into capital expenditure. Once operational these projects are expected to create over 700 new full-time jobs and supplement Malta’s exports by over €900 M by 2022, mainly to European Union markets. The Government is informed that a number of companies are projecting to start exporting medical cannabis from Malta to Europe as early as Quarter 1 of 2020.”

  Myself I cannot return to the island till 2023. But I – and my family – are looking forward to that day.

  Prologue: Freedom

  The year is 2018. Five days before Christmas. I am alone at home for the first time in weeks. My daughters are at school and my wife is busy at the local community church. It is Christmas, after all. But 14 years ago, I had no wife, no daughters and no home, though I had already made the biggest decision of my life without knowing it.

  The lure of Malta.

  This tale.

  It is mine, but it could have been yours.

  *

  I arrived in Malta ten days into January of 2004, travelling by container ship from Reggio Calabria, Italy. My parents at the time lived in southern Italy. The journey was lazily taking me towards my destiny.

  I had been working and living in Cardiff, Wales. One day while cheffing in a hectic pub kitchen, I declared, “Sod this! I’ve had enough! I’m leaving and I’m going to Malta!” Now I must confess that at the time I knew very little about Malta. I didn’t even really know where it was, let alone why I had said I was going there.

  Could it have been the film I had watched the night before? Somehow Alec Guinness’ The Maltese Falcon must have stuck in my mind. Not wanting to appear a fool back then, although I’m certainly used to that now, I followed through with my conviction, wherever it would lead me.

  From the steel ship, I stepped onto the rugged Maltese shore. All I had were two bags that contained the few worldly possessions I owned: some Scuba equipment, one €500 note and all the hope and excitement one has at the start of an adventure.

  I found a cheap bed & breakfast at four Maltese Lira per night (€9), nestled in the back streets of the historic capital, Valletta. Instantly I was amazed by the warmth of the Maltese people. I was still given a room and welcomed, even though I had to wait till the next day to change my euro into the local currency of Lira (LM).

  I was, as all travellers are, enamoured with my new surroundings. Although it was quite dusty, a lot less green and not as clean as back home, Malta captivated me. The higgledy-piggledy streets of Valletta, the radiant sun at that time of year and the happiness of the people comforted me and brought me great serenity. I started exploring the island and started looking for work and more permanent accommodation. By now, I had embraced the typically slow Mediterranean pace.

  Even though it was January the waters were azure and inviting, a far comparison to the grey, British shores. It was a liberating time; I found a magical air on the island and within the people.

  A month later, in February, my friend Matthew decided to come down from Wales for a taste of this new life I had discovered. I set off for the airport to pick him up. This meant hours of commuting in the heat, on rough roads, on buses painted in the most vivid shades of yellow with dazzling decorations. Somehow the spine-juddering ride made me feel happy and alive.

  I arrived about an hour before his flight was due, so I found myself resting in the shade that streaked the front of the modern terminal building. I smoked a cigarette and waited for Matthew to land, eager to share this idyllic island with someone else.

  That was when I first met Barry.

  I could never have imagined then how unpredictable this roller-coaster of life is; how both our lives would change that day.

  I suddenly became aware of a man standing beside me. I smelt the air before I saw him. He was smoking something that was not just tobacco. After what seemed like an eternity, I broke the ice, mumbling:

  “That smells sweet.”

  “It’s only a bit of rocky. Here, want a puff?”

  With that chance meeting between two expats, that sharing-of-a-spliff moment on a warm February afternoon in 2004, the universe had sewn its seeds for this story. And it had all the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy.

  *

  We chatted about the world and politics related to cannabis, as smokers tend to do. We spoke about why we were drawn to the sunny island of Malta, so far away from Britain, and the bleak overcast days of our home shore.

  Barry had been living in Gozo, Malta’s smaller sister island, for a while, with his girlfriend and her three children. He described Gozo as the kind of Mediterranean island I had always dreamed of. We swapped numbers, with promises to get in touch soon: he was heading back to the UK for a week; my friend was about to land; and the joint had finished. Cannabis smokers have an uncanny knack of bonding over a few pulls of the herb; like a beckoning, unjudgmental fraternity. We went our separate ways, unaware that time would bring us back together soon enough.

  Before long, Mathew and I had settled into wandering around; looking for work, swimming, fishing and inhabiting our brave new world full of sensory beauties.

  I’d almost forgotten about Barry and his stories of Gozo, until some two weeks after our chance meeting, he phoned and told me, “Why don’t you come over to Gozo and let me show you the island?”

  Off I went. Again, a bumpy bus ride, this time heading north, to Ċirkewwa. As the bus chugged down the steep road heading to the coast, I was taken in by the staggering vista. There, before me was a panorama of deep blue waters and the islands of Gozo and Comino floated about like clouds. The roll-on, roll-off ferry was waiting and passengers filed onboard like ants. Crammed with tourists, locals and all manner of vehicles, we set sail on the short 30-minute journey.

  I stood on the top deck, and watched as the ship passed by Comino with its blue lagoon and turquoise water, and then we drew closer to Gozo’s port called Mġarr. The first glimpse of Gozo unfolded before me: the typical sand-coloured stone of the houses, contrasted with the plethora of blues, yellows and reds of the traditional local fishing boats (luzzu) that dot Gozo’s rocky coastline. I don’t know if it’s possible to feel an emotion of love for a piece of land, but if it is, that moment on deck was love at first sight.

  There, waiting for me on the wharf, with the sun’s rays shining upon him, was Barry Charles Lee. He was there as promised, leaning against his car wearing sunglasses and light linen clothes, beaming and full of the joy of life. That memory of him, I still hold so dear and will never be lost to time.

  On that wonderful warm February day, we wound our way around the island as the surroundings lazily coasted by. Its rustic beauty combined with, yes, some rolled pleasure, was enough to make my head spin.

  At midday we drove down a sharp, steep, winding hill that seemed to fall straight into the sea. At the last crown it turned and opened into a spectacular tiny bay, embraced by high cliffs. Snuggled against the back corner of the beach was a quaint, laid-back, rustic eatery.

  Barry ordered some food in English, throwing in a few local words here and there. The Maltese language sounded firing and enchanting to my ears. We dined on a typical Maltese lunch of rabbit pasta, with crunchy fresh bread and olive oil, washed down with local red wine and a conversation that would alter the course of our lives forever.

  We spoke of our love of sunshine and the slow pace of the island. We were both seasoned travellers and had many stories to share, especially with a bit of help of the liberating herbs. The sea was a big draw for both of us, although Barry preferred boating and fishing to my scuba diving and swimming. There is a great solace that comes from being around water. Although I feel at home in the mountains of Wales, I, like many, draw towards the coast and its calming effect.

  We talked of our love and journey with weed. People who enjoy
cannabis, often reminisce on times gone by. Altercations with authority because of their choice, different strains of the plant and their effects, times of less pollution and a time when it seemed to be provided by the old hippy types who were in it for peace, love and happiness; as opposed to the new breed of providers who want cash, fame and credit. Like every smoker, we daydreamed of a utopia where we could grow the plant organically, and just pluck it from the garden in the morning and never have problems with supply or demand. Ah, the simple act of providing for oneself! Looking back, were we foolish? I don’t know, life is such a funny thing.

  After that intoxicating day trip to Gozo, which sealed the bond with Barry as a soul companion, and my love for the Gozo island, I returned to mainland Malta. Within two days I had packed up all my belongings, including a potted forked cactus and convinced my friend Matthew to join me to the Gozitan shores. Our hearts were eager to embark on an adventure, unaware of just how close to the limit that adventure would come.

  Barry had arranged cheap accommodation in the hilltop town of Żebbuġ. Żebbuġ means “olive” in Maltese and in Arabic. The Maltese language has deep Semitic roots, mixed with the neighbouring Italian and Sicilian influences (the Maltese culinary dishes reflect a similar pattern). France and Britain, once occupying forces of Malta, left their traces too on the Maltese language over its long history.

  The three-bedroom Żebbuġ apartment was spacious, modern and, as is typical of Mediterranean living, rather bare. Tiled floors throughout and sandstone walls gave it a certain starkness. It was just across the street from where Barry rented his family house and stayed with his girlfriend and young children. I remember feeling very old as the children tried to help me learn days of the week, numbers and a few pleasantries in Maltese which just would not stick in my mind. Today I am once again going through the same motions, this time with my own children trying to teach me Polish.

  We passed the days lazily. I’d take Barry’s children snorkelling, or I’d walk their dog in the countryside or we’d all go and eat a pizza at the local tavern, Franks. The cost of living was so cheap that for LM2 (about €5) one could buy a pizza and a few beers sit on the balcony and enjoy the panoramic views of Gozo’s northern rugged land. Life was good and almost carefree; I should have known it would not last.