This is Benjamin

Posts Tagged ‘innocent’

Accused of trafficking drugs? Innocent? Don’t panic, it’ll be okay.

December 28th, 2009 | benjamin

Its an excuse trotted out again and again by those accused of drug trafficking at airports.

‘Its not mine,’ or ‘Somebody must have planted it there’.

I’d always assumed that it was a fabrication, a final and implausible plea for freedom by those facing years, decades even, in a dank, overcrowded prison thousands of miles from home.

Now, I’m not so sure.

It was Christmas Eve. I had passed security at Marrakesh Airport and was waiting my turn in an achingly slow passport queue.

Eventually, my brother overcame this hurdle, and then I presented my passport and waited in silent amicability for the requisite checks and stamps. As the official was about to conclude I was seized from behind by a Moroccan police officer, marched back to security and into a small curtained booth.

All the while, the officer spoke to me in French while I called out ‘Anglais, Anglais’ and protested that French is no longer the international language (I jest.). He did give me a funny look, though, as if to say, ‘Come on, you know what I’m saying.’

Inside the booth he presented me with two of the aforementioned condoms packed with something – hash, heroin, I don’t know. Now I’m not certain whether he did switch to English, or whether in this moment of desperation we spoke in some kind of universal language, but from here on I understood what he was saying.

‘They are yours,’ he said.
‘Non,’ I replied. Needless to say, I had not seen these items until this moment.
‘They are yours,’ he said again.
‘Non.’
He felt around my cock and balls to see if I was concealing anything. Another officer slipped through the curtain and double checked his partner’s work.
‘They are yours!’ They said in unison.
‘Non!’ I shrieked.
‘Passport.’
I handed it over and the pair scrutinised it, muttering ‘Australian’ under their breath.
‘You are here with a child. You came before with a child.’
‘Non.’
‘Yes a child.’
‘No, just my brother and he’s gone through.’
‘You were here with a child!’
‘Non!’
Clearly, the officer was stressed now that his gutsy arrest was rapidly fragmenting into a case of mistaken identity.
The two men muttered with one another, pointing at the passport and at me.
The original officer turned to me and flicked his wrist without saying a word. I was dismissed.

I could not feel the airport tiles beneath my feet.