Thane,

One question you asked was if a Bulgarian prison was like a Canadian prison. My
immediate answer was NO. However, I have never been in a Canadian prison and
except for my stay in Germany have no experience with other prisons. So maybe it is
better if I write you a short story that gives you a description of the place where I am.

A lot of things came back to me after I had a chance to read the first version of this
story. Below, marked in red are my changes. If I had more time there would be a lot
more memories returning. Maybe the additions and changes will add something to what
you already have. Its 24 pages and I hope you are not bored by it. This is the last and
there won’t be anymore coming from me unless you ask. Again, please forgive all the
typos. There is really so little time and resources to print this out and read it as carefully
as I would like. Also excuse the poor metaphors and occasional soap box I choose to
stand on. Sometime I forget this is not speakers’ corner at Hyde Park and get carried
away.

Again I thank you for the interest of the Toronto Star in my family and me. Maybe
someone will find our continued suffering to be unjustified and will find a way to help.
I have written so many pleading letters to Canada’s politicians and few ever write back.
Clearly they have never been to a prison the likes of those in Bulgaria or else they
simply don’t care, neither about me or any other Canadian who really needs their help.

THE SOFIA CENTRAL PENITENTIARY

SOFIA BULGARIA
FOREIGN PRISONERS SECTION
Getting to Bulgaria

My odyssey as a Canadian about to move through the bowls of Bulgaria’s judicial and
penal system started on September 2nd 1996. This is almost exactly seven months to the
day after I was arrested at Frankfurt International Airport by German police.

The German’s arrested me on February 7th 1996. I was arrested because Bulgarian
police had issued an international arrest warrant that alleged I was the head of a
Canadian pseudo religious cult operating out of Vancouver BC.

According to the Bulgarian warrant it was the Canadian police who had informed
Bulgarian authorities that I was heading up an international money laundering
operation in Europe and in Bulgaria. According to the warrant I had succeeded in
defrauding 9,500 Bulgarian citizens by getting them to place 16,000,000 USD in cash
“trust deposits” with my company and that. Allegedly I later embezzled the money by
wiring the money it through the Caribbean to accounts of the “cult” in Vancouver, BC
Canada.

19305749.doc Page 1 of 33
Later, this all proved to be nothing but libelous nonsense and formed the legal grounds
for one of the lawsuits in BC.

On July 22 2002, some 6 years, 5 months and 15 days after my arrest the Sofia City
Court of Appeal acquitted me of the original 1996 allegations. I had been on trial,
without a “final” charge for more than 6 years.

The Court of Appeal dismissing the lower court conviction was positive only in that it
exonerated me of the fraud and embezzlement of public funds and by
provingconfirming the original accusations and charges to be legally impossible and
factually impossible. But, untrue.

It could not end there, I had already been in prison nearly 7 years. My imprisonment
had to somehow be justified and so the Court of Appeal decided to bring a new charge
by and “re-qualifyingqualified” the facts and charging charged me with one count of
having embezzled approximately 165,000 USD in embezzlement. The amount I was
alleged to have misappropriated was “in real money” about 165,000 USD. These are
corporate funds belongingthat belonged to the Bulgaria Company. A company I
controlled. There was no money involved that belonged to any individuals. I had
incorporated the Bulgarian company in 1993 and owned 75% of theits shares and
controlled 100the other 25%. This was not the crime for which the German’s extradited
me. A fact that bothers me to this moment is the failure of Canada Foreign Affairs to
engage the German government in reevaluating Bulgarian compliance with the terms of
extradition.

The crime of embezzlement according to Bulgarian law is a felony and is punishable by

imprisonment from 10 to 30 years. In Germany and Canada embezzlement is
punishable by no more than 10 years.

At the time in Bulgaria it was only murder that carried a heavyheavier sentence of 15 to
20 years, life or the death penalty which then at was under a moratorium.

I was sentenced to serve 17 years in a maximum security prison, an improvement from

the 23 year sentence that . An earlier court had sentence me to serve a 23 year sentence.
This was set aside with the my acquittal. by the Court of Appeal. This is a big
improvement, but it is still the heaviest sentence for embezzlement ever given to a non-
government official in modern Bulgarian judicial history and .

I was, and remain, today the ONLY business manbusinessman ever convicted of such
a crime in Bulgaria.

So onOn September 2nd of 1996 I left a German prison hospital and started the tripmy
journey to Sofia Bulgaria. The plane was a Soviet era Tupolev 156. I was accompanied
by 4 plain cloths policemen and 1 doctor. That’s because I had been taken to the place
on a stretcher after having been forcefully dragged unconscious out off my hospital bed

19305749.doc Page 2 of 33
by German police.The German prosecutor had asked for the doctor because he was
going to have me forcefully removed from my hospital bed and then deliver me to the
Bulgarian police on a stretcher. This time the German prosecutor was not going to be
embarrassed as he had been before by a prison doctor. The Bulgarian police had come
top collect me the month, August. They returned to Bulgaria empty handed because a
German prison doctor had only hours before told the German prosecutor that my health
would not allow her to approve the extradition.

The day before the German Prosecutor had decided my hunger strike was embarrassing
him in front of before the Bulgarian authorities and so he decided to have me police
remove from the hospital by force. The Bulgarian Balkan Airlines plane and police
were waiting at the airport and this time the German prosecutor was not going
embarrassed as before by a prison doctor.

The whole rear of the Balkan airlines flight, some 100 seats, was left intentionally
empty except for me and these 5I will never forget her, and the last words she said to
me; “I hope this buys you enough time so Canada can do something”. So did I, but I
did not know then that my arrest by Bulgaria was because of a Canadian police
officer’s lies and a written Canadian RCMP request for me to be prosecuted in
Bulgaria. There wasn’t going to be any help that day or for the next few years coming
from Canada.

This time the German Prosecutor was not going to be embarrassed by either a doctor or
my hunger strike. So he decided to have order German police to remove me from the
hospital by force.

On the morning of my departure two uniformed German police arrived and ordered
hospital staff to remove my IV. I remember the German police officers swearing at me
as I stood up off then bed and not so gracefully passed out in front of them. I can
remember falling for what seems like minutes of the world spinning around as the
hospital floor approached. It was with a thump that I hit the floor. It sounded very much
like a rather large sack of potatoes. Before I completely lost consciousness I heard the
words “Slavic pig” and “bastard Jew” uttered by these two German policemen. It was
said with a lot of great contempt. Obviously they were not looking forward to carrying
this rather large Canadian into the back seat of their car. The “Jew” surprised me
because, on the advice of my father I was not to tell anyone that my grandparents and
father were Jews.

Very unceremoniously they ordered two convicts to grab one leg each and another two
to grab an arm each and carry me unconscious out of the hospital to the waiting police
car. I later regained consciousness in the police car and asked the policemen why they
were treating me so harshly. They explained that I was a Bulgarian and could not stay
in Germany. I later learned they believed this because the Bulgarian Prosecutor had
written the German Prosecutor that I was “a Bulgarian citizen hiding behind a Canadian
passport”. To the German’s I was never a “real Canadian”. I have never been a citizen

19305749.doc Page 3 of 33
of Bulgaria. Once more the Bulgarian Prosecutor had lied the same way he had lied in
all the documents submitted to German police.

The Bulgarian Balkan Airlines plane and police were waiting for me at the Frankfurt
International Airport. The whole rear of the Balkan airlines flight, some 100 seats, was
left intentionally empty. There was only me, the doctor and 4 representatives of the
Bulgarian police. The flight was uneventful and I still refused to eat.

Arriving At Sofia International Airport

Later that evening we arrived at Sofia International Airport.

The security was like something out of a Tom Clancy novel. The plane taxied to an
isolated part of the airport tarmac. When it the plane stopped the placeit was then
surrounded by at my best count 2 armored vehicles, 4 or 5 police jeeps with their lights
flashing and 50 masked policemen from thea interior police Special Forces swat team.
Every one of them Each wearing a mask, a bullet proof vests and carrying
Kalashnikovs, in a Kalashnikov. In turn they were surrounded by hundreds of curious
airport employees.

Bulgarian TV journalists had been kept away from the plane. Also, the other passengers
were not allowed to disembark until after I was carried down to the waiting ambulance.

With sirens wailing we departed the airport. About 10 minutes later I arrived at the
special military hospital that would be my home the next 14 days. I would be kept there
under heavy 24 hour guard by two masked armed guards, one in the room and would
continue to refuse to eat. But, if I wanted to see the Canadian consul I had to accept
intravenous feeding.one outside my door. They were rotated every 2 hours.

I stilled continue refusing food. So the next day police investigator “Georgiev” visited
me with his interpreter and said “the Canadian consul wants to see you. But, if you
want to see the Canadian consul then you better accept being fed intravenously”.

I agreed, in hind sight I should not never have agreed. He was bluffing, but I was
already weak and a lot of the fight had drained out of me.

The next day I sawgot to see the Canadian consul, . It was a wasted and useless visit. I
remember him holding my hand and telling me everything would be “OK”. When I
think about that moment I can only recall how pathetically meek the Consul was, he
simply did not project any authority. The Bulgarian police investigator walked all over
him and there was nothing I could do.

19305749.doc Page 4 of 33
InTo see my lawyers meant I had to stay on intravenous. To send letters to my family
meant or get a bible or other books required that I the pills they gave me. Eventually I
stopped losing weight, and was removed the minute Bulgarian doctors could report
they had stabilized my health.

More than Two Years of Solitary Confinement

It was mid-September of 1996, the 16th I think, when I was removed from left the
military hospital to solitary confinement. The These facilities are operated by the
Bulgarian federal police. These They are dark places whose very appearance announces
the brutality and dehumanizing you can expect. My experiences there are so surrealistic
as to seem like nightmares. Thankful they have receded to some part of my psyche and
only reappear in the nightmares that like clockwork wake me up every morning at 5:30
am. I am coping with them, but you can’t ever really forget what happens to you in
such ugly and violent places. It was not that the beatings that so bad. Those are cuts and
bruises, they can heal. It was how and when you were beaten that was horrifying. In the
middle of your sleep the door

The cells are windowless 1 and ½ meter by two and ½ meter coffins illuminated 24
hours a day by nothing more than a 40 watt yellow light bulb. It never goes off. The
cell doors are made of heavy wood reinforced with steel. They have a huge single
sliding dead bolt lock that opens. Sometimes quietly or suddenly, you never know. You
barely have time to wake up before they cover your head with a blanket and then start.
Just as suddenly they leave. You can’t move off the bed, it hurts too much. So you go
back to sleep. The next morning you wonder if it some kind of dream? The pain and the
bruises prove otherwise. After a while you learn there won’t be any lawyers seeing you
for the next few days of weeks. The bruises have to heal. You learnkey used to open the
only personal you will see is the police investigator asking the same questions. And,
you will have another “nightmare encounter” if you do not give the answers he expects.
There were other solutions if you decided to resist. The injections, these were to “calm”
you down and the “pills” to help you sleep. You had to take them. But then you had
nightmares and could not sleep. I remember once staying awake three days. You can
only figure all this out over time. Everybody is so “helpful” that you trust them and
take for granted what they are saying. Once I passed a note to a Canadian Consular
Officer, Jamie Bell, I wrote “I am being drugged”. Nothing happened, and they the
Bulgarians just kept it up until sometime in 1997 when suddenly it stopped. I think it
was August. Nothing from those two years in solitary seems real anymore, except the
daily nightmares that still terrify me everyday. dungeon doors in bad “B” rated horror
flicks.

When hearing the sound of the cell locks being opened or closed I remember
wondering to myself “is life imitating art”? Or had the Bulgarian architects of this
chamber of horrors borrowed its design directly from Hollywood? The sound was the
same as those old black and white movies I watched as a kid in Canada.

19305749.doc Page 5 of 33
If the idea of this place was to scare you, well it worked really well. Particularly after
what I saw waiting for me in the cell. Six metal bunks, no mattresses and only one
blanket. I can remember today exactly the words I spoke to myself that day as the door
locked shut behind me “welcome to your new home Mike”.

Prisoners are not allowed anything to help them pass the hours, days, weeks, month and
even years. No books, no wrist watch or clock of any kind, no pen or paper, no exercise
and no contact with anyone except the police investigator and occasionally your lawyer
or the Canadian consul.

You are completely alone except for the disembodied voices outside your room. I was
alone, and would be alone for the next 25 months.

My experiences there are so surrealistic as to seem more like nightmares rather than
real experiences. For the last 8 years nightmares have greeted me when I try to sleep
and always end by waking me every morning. After so many years I still find it hard to
cope with them at 5:30 am, but I have to and still have to.

Thankfully these memories have receded to some remote part of my psyche that allows
them to only reappear as nightmares. But you really can’t ever forget what happens to
you in such ugly and violent places. It was not that the beatings were so bad. Those
only resulted in the occasion cut and more often nothing only in shallow bruises.
Physical scarring is temporary and heals. But your heart and mind are permanently
scarred by the how and when of the beatings.

In the middle of your sleep the door to your cell opens, the heavy bolt giving a loud
metallic “crack” and then “thunk” as it slides and comes to rest on one side. Suddenly
and without any other sound the faceless devils enter your cell. You never know on
what night you will have visitors. There is barely time to wake up and before you open
your eyes the faceless devils have covered your head with a blanket and then it starts.

The muted “thud, thud, thud” of more than one truncheon as it bounces off the thin
fabric separating your flesh from the cold hard rubber. Somehow the pain some is
disassociated from that sound. You lay there frightened but in an uncomprehending
stupor as you wonder at what is happening to you. There is a disassociated from the
event. You are not a participant, but an observer trying to grasp the moment. There is a
state of complete disbelief as you “watch” someone being mercilessly beaten, but that
someone is you.

It ends just as suddenly as it began. The masked devils leave like dark fantoms,
shadows that could speak. there words still resounding in my mind “don’t say anything
to anyone or else it will get worse”. So you lay there, unable to move, being beaten can
be exhausting. You can’t get off the bed, in fact you don’t want to. First because it hurts
too much and second because its easier to let dark clouds of unconsciousness to
consume you and pretend you are only going back to sleep. The next morning you will

19305749.doc Page 6 of 33
wonder if it was only some kind of a bad dream. But the pain and the bruises prove
otherwise. You gone on with your day alone with your only the demons left behind.

I learned there won’t be any lawyers seeing me after the beatings. My isolation could
last a few days or possibly even weeks. The bruises have to heal first.

The only person I would be sure to see is the police investigator, “Georgiev”. He is
going to ask me the same question again and again “Where is the money?”. I will give
him the same answer “I don’t know”, wrong answer. It means I will have another
“encounter”.

There are other solutions if you decided to continue to resist in giving the “right”
answers, the injections and pills.

I was told these were only to “calm you down” and to “help you sleep”. The guards
always put the pill in your mounth and watched you swallow. You had to take them.
But instead of sleeping I got only nightmares. My heart would race so hard that it was
impossible to sleep. I remember once I stayed awake for three days.

At first you cannot figure any of this out. It takes time, and other prisoners whispering
through the cracks of their cell doors “don’t take the pills”. Enventually I figured figure
it but it took time. Police Investigator Georgiev is a real piece of work. He has an
R.C.M.P. plaque that he proudly displays on his office wall. He got it for working with
the R.C.M.P. on something or other. Maybe he got it for having me arrested by German
Police as R.C.M.P. Sgt. Doornbos had asked Georgiev to do back in May and July of
1995. I did not know that at the time.

Maybe it was for how Georgiev had treated other Canadian’s in his custody. I really
don’t know or care. All I know is that this guy was an alcoholic, a brute and a corrupted
liar. At one point Georgiev called me down and introduced me to a lawyer that he said
“could help”.

This was the first time Georgiev had ever left me alone in his office with an attorney.
Believe me by this time I was ready to hear anybody who could “help”. It turned out
that if my wife could arrange a bribe of 60,000 USD to be paid to the lawyer for
Georgiev then I would get me released either on bail or under house arrest.

From 1996 to 1998 it was police investigators and prosecutors who both arrested you
and then also decided if you would or would not be released on bail. There was no
court or judges then, no judicial control at all. You were at the mercy of men like
Georgiev, and he could keep you in jail indefinitely. So I wrote a letter to be faxed to
my wife and her Dad. My in-laws are the only people I could think of that could
borrow that kind of money on short notice. The deal fell apart. Later I learned that my
family had put the 60,000 USD together and were prepared to pay it into escrow with
an attorney in the USA. Georgiev could pick the lawyer. The deal was the money would

19305749.doc Page 7 of 33
be paid once the lawyer obtained notification from Canada Foreign Affairs that I had
been released. But Georgiev and his lawyer wanted the money in cash and in Sofia,
Bulgaria. My family said no. That was the right decision.

It is easy to be deceived and lulled into compliancy. Everybody, the guards, the doctors
and the police investigator are so “helpful”. You start to trust them and take for granted
that what they are saying is true and their intentions only well meaning. But it is all a
game to get the information they want and to control you.

Once I passed a note to a Canadian Consular Official, Jamie Bell, the note said “I am
being drugged”. But nothing happened, so for more than one year the Bulgarians just
kept it up. It was sometime in late 1997 that the beatings and drugging stopped.
Suddenly it was over, no more night time visits. No demons and no angels, I was finally
alone with only the nightmares. I think it was August, I can’t really remember. Nothing
from those two years in solitary seems real anymore, except the nightmares that still
terrify me each night.

I survived those years by seeking solace in my God. I expressed my anguish and

experiences in hundreds of drawings and hundreds of written pages in my diary. It was
hard, and I can’t say that I came out of there normal. Then again I wonder if I had been
“normal” when I went in. After two years of solitary you tend wonder if you ever were
normal. The human condition and life as you once knew it become nothing but
abstracts to be discussed among those inner voices that we all have but who remain
silent until called upon or released by a need to survive or a tragedy you could never
have imagined.

Like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra I could speak to each sun rise and sunset that I could not
see but knew was there. I could tell myself that I am stronger in spirit and in body than
those who seek to break me, so I can’t be broken. I accept the beatings silently and
abuses without complaint. But this is not resignation, it is defiance expressed through
indifference to the harshness of my circumstance. I refused to act like the others who
rant and rave at their tormentors. I am not a caged animal so I can put myself above
those who abuse me. I became indifferent, aloof and begin to rejoice in my isolation.
The concept of death is that of a welcome friend. My nightmares and visions were the
reality, and not the clumsy little box that failed to trap my spirit and mind, holding
instead a body that was no longer significant.

But unlike Nietzsche’s Zarathustra God was not dead to me, but became alive and was
all around me. He was and remains in everything, the air, the dust, and even the
darkness. Each time I closed my eyes I could see and hear Him. God became a living
friend who spoke to me through me.

19305749.doc Page 8 of 33
Like the legendary Hercules peeling off layer after layer of his immortality until finally
discovering he is only mortal. I became peeling off layer after layer of my mortality
until finally discovered that we are all immortal. When I reflect on that time I am
amazed, first because I lived it and second at how much truth I uncovered and was
revealed in the torment.

Then in September of 1998 it ended and a new journey began.

Arriving at the Sofia Central Penitentiary

I first arrived at the Sofia Central Penitentiary sometime in September of 1998. I was
both frightened and relieved. The fear came from not knowing what to expect, the relief
came from knowing that maybe soon there would be a charge, a defense, then a trial,
finally home and an end to the nightmare. Things did not work out that way.

To get to the Sofia Central Penitentiary or SCP for short, you have to drive through the
pothole-riddled streets of downtown Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

The trip from the city center starts at the luxurious Sheraton Hotel. That “palace” is
almost directly across from the criminal court house in whose dungeon like cellars I
was to spend hundreds of days and thousands of hours waiting for my criminal trial to
finish.

Getting to the prison requires you to meander around city blocks of old grey and soot
covered buildings that are in stark contrast to the clean modern facilities of the
Sheraton. You can see numerous unfinished high rise apartment buildings. Some started
more than 15 years ago. Like everything in the late 80’s the construction, like the
Bulgaria, just suddenly stopped when country, became frozen in time the money having
ran out. These are communist ear memorials frozen in time and waiting for the
resources that freedom and democracy are supposed to bring.

The also can be said for the Bulgarian criminal justice system and Bulgaria’s
correctional institutions. The rules, practices and facilities are corrupt and inefficient
remnants from the communist past of Bulgaria. Like the unfinished apartment blocks
the courts and the prisons are also frozen in time and waiting for changes. The waiting
is still goingThe unfinished buildings, poor infrastructure and dirty streets are
communist era monuments. They are memorials to a past that refuses to die before the
promises of democracy become more than only unrealized dreams.

Nowadays, when making the trip to the SCP you will see few Russian cars. Unlike the
days of the communist era there are if anything far too many cars in old streets and far
too few places to park those cars.

Like the overcrowded streets of downtown Sofia the Bulgarian prison system is also
overcrowded with some 10,000 inmates.

19305749.doc Page 9 of 33
If the Bulgarian newspapers are to be believed then there are another 50,000 men and
women waiting to enter the prison system. There is simply no where to “park” them,
their criminal trials go on and the human cost still growing.

Nowadays, as you make the trip to the prison you will see few Russian cars. But, unlike
the days of the communist era there are if anything far too many cars for the old streets
and there are by far too few places to park those cars. The Bulgarian prison system is
also over crowed with some 10,000 inmates. If the Bulgarian newspapers are to be
believed then there are another 50,000 men and women waiting to enter the prison
system. There is simply no where to “park” them, their trials years stalled within an
overcrowded judicial system unable to move thecriminal cases out as fast as they come
in.

In the past Bulgaria’s prisons were filled with political prisoners and the big criminals,
Bulgaria’s capitalists and corrupted state officials. Now Bulgaria’s prisons are filled
with its poorest citizens, the “gypsy’s.” or Roma as they are called. They become
“criminals” because in Bulgaria a gypsy has very little economic opportunity in this
country and therefore very little choice except to steal. There are several well
publicized cases where the courts have sentenced a Roma’s to 90 or more years for
stealing chickens.

Nobody outside Bulgaria believes this to be possible, but it is and I dare anyone to try
and investigate what happens to these men and women who have become lost within
the Bulgarian prison system.

Like the courts the traffic towards the prison is also often stopped dead in its tracks.
Thankfully it only takes to 10 to 15 minutes to clear up and not years.

I have made the trip from the center of Sofia so many times that I have forgotten
exactly how many. But I won’t soon forget those trips. Why? Because, there are 15 of

Fifteen prisoners are packed into an unventilated and windowless spacevehicle

designed for only 6. It is at the point of a bill club or with a boot in the ass that allows
the transport police to cramcan succeed in cramming 15 men into a 20 year old Russian
panel van designed for only 6.

You “sit” one on top of the other and can barely breathe. There’s no The lack of
adequate ventilation, and exhaust fumes means that if its summer then at least one and
sometime as many as three peoplemen will pass out or puke. To protest is useless. You
just pray that the traffic is light so you can to the SCP before anything worse happens.

Once, in the summer of 2000, another prisoner passed out and we carried out of the
van. He was grey from a loss of color and his breathing shallow and irregular. I took
over his care once I was pulled out of the van. I had to because no one of the convoy
police knew or was interested in trying to revive the guy. All I did was yell at them

19305749.doc Page 10 of 33
toEach year from 1998 to 2002 the guards would explain to me that there was simply
not enough money to buy additional fuel. The convoy police only had enough fuel for
the one trip there and back and no more. I haven choosen to believe them and accept
that overcrowded vehicles are not their fault, they are just following orders. In 2003
they the Ministry of Justice Bulgaria received from the European Union donations of
new panel vans. The Convoy Police has new trucks but still no money for fuel. So we
are still packed into these new vans like before. It’s a little better but not muck.

So you just pray that the traffic is light so you can to the SCP before anything worse
happens.

Once, in the summer of 2000, another prisoner traveling with me had passed out. We
carried him out of the van, so much blood had drained from his face that his appearance
was the stone face of a man having seen the face of the Gorgon Medusa. His breathing
was shallow and irregular.

Once he had pulled him out of the van I took over his care. I had to because no one of
the convoy police knew or was interested in trying to revive the guy. All I could do was
to yell at the police to get some cold water, a doctor and a stretcher. In the mean time I
did what I could. He later recovered in hospital.

It was later that I learned that on that same day he had just been sentenced to two
consecutive life sentences for a double homicide. I guess I’d have passed out to.

My First Days at the Sofia Central Penitentiary

I can recall a lot of unsettling scenes since having first arrived at the SCP in September
1998.

In 1998 I was at the farthest possible point away from my family and alone in one of
the toughest fights of my life. I had not seen my wife and son for nearly three years and
was severely depressed. Now I was now about to embark on life in a maximum security
prison once housing Bulgaria’s equivalent of the death chamber.row.

No experience could be worse than what I had already gone through the preceding 2
years while held in solitary confinement. But I was not prepared for the fact that I
would be spending another 6 years in a Bulgarian prison. I was also not prepared for
the indifference of Bulgarian prison officials that I was about to encounter at the SCP. I
though the prison would be more humane and better organized. This was a place where
men who are still human beings had to spend years or possibly all of their life. Surely
the I was even less prepared at how little Canada Foreign Affairs could or would do to
protect a Canadian citizen outside of Canada.

19305749.doc Page 11 of 33
Originally, I had though the prison would be a more humane and better organized place
than the “torture chambers” of the arrest facilities.

The SCP is a place where a man who is still a human being might have is to spend
years or possibly all of what remains of his natural life. Surely Bulgarian correctional
services people had towould have some consideration towards protecting the mental
and physical health of the inmates and their rehabilitation? I was wrong; at the SCP the
.

The word “rehabilitation” does not exist in its the lexicon or that of any Bulgarian
penitentiary. Only the wordsphrases “harsh” and “, punishment” and “you have no
rights” are repeated regularly and as a part of the standard to be applied.holy mantra for
prison “social workers” and administrators.

In 1998 the Sofia Central Penitentiary had a reputation of being one of the strictest,
least tolerant and most corrupted and therefore “expensive” prisons in Bulgaria.

There has been some improvement since then. At I first arrived in 1998. However, at a
certain level the corruption within the prison systmen is still a problem, but it is
although not as pervasive at the lower level as it was in 1998. Tolerance remains a
problem.before.

Tolerance and indifference are real problems. There is serious resistance at all levels of
the SCP to programs designed to “rehabilitate” prisoners, particularly foreign citizens.
Attempts at improving living conditions and facilities are also resisted by the higher
level Bulgarian Correctional Service officials in charge of all Bulgaria’s penitentiaries.
I know because I have struggled with them to bring about change.

The SCP is intended only house repeat offenders, and the Bulgarian version of “death
row”.

In 1998 Bulgaria still had the death penalty and a number of the guys housed in the “1st
Prisoners Ward” were still waiting to find out if Bulgaria would accept the European
council requirements and repeal the death penalty.

The SCP has another distinction. It is the only prison designated inby the Minister of
Justice Bulgaria as the facility to house foreign citizens accused or convicted of crimes
in Bulgaria.

All foreign prisoners eventually end up here. It does not matter if you are a first time
offender or are soon to be released. If you are not a Bulgarian then you must serve your
time within the walls of this maximum security prison.

19305749.doc Page 12 of 33
The SCP is not a place that a first time Bulgarian offender you would himself. Only a
Canadian or other non-Bulgarian is placed in a maximum security notwithstanding the
nature of his crime or his sentence.

The SCP is an old prison. My first impressions of it were like a combination medieval
castle and grey drab collapsing cement tomb. The paint, where there is any, is all
peeling off the exterior and interior walls. The metal frames of the doors and metal beds
are all bear rusting steel. There is cement and plaster dust everywhere. The air is filled
with it; you breathe it and get it into your cloths. Nothing you do will ever get rid of it.

The ceilings in the cells and in the prison common areas all had cobwebs that
looklooked like they had years to grow. Nobody apparently interested in removing
them.

The prison is also infested with cockroaches, and rats.

On my first night here I can remember that I was lying in bed and felt something
crawling over me. When I woke up and opened my eyes the first thing I could also see
some saw directly above my top bunk was a black pulsating mass on the ceiling. It was
seemed alive and movingas it moved in and out of the cracks of, theyin the concrete
above me. They were cockroaches. Several, thousands of them and several had fallen
from the ceiling into my bed and onto me. I had never seen so many cockroaches in my
life. Apparently they had made their home, by the thousands, between the reinforced
concrete slabs that make up each cell.

One night I remember somebody screaming when some of one or more cockroaches
fell on his face. Maybe he swallowed one. During the day you could only see one or
two in the cracks. Later I would learn this would become a near daily event and these
conditions were not limited to the 1st Prisoners Ward. The SC P is infested with them
and you could not get rid of them.

My first weeks at the SCP were to be spent in the 1st Prisoners Ward. It is not only the
ward for lifers and death row inmates but also the receiving center for new inmates of
the SCP.

On arriving at the SCP you are first placed I arrived at the SCP with a few boxes and
some bags of personal belongings. These were immediately taken from me when I was
placed into a holding cell with 3 other recent arrivals. We were allowed only the cloths
on our back, soap, a tooth brush and toothpaste. For drinking water we were given an
old plastic Coca Cola bottle filled with water from the sink at the common toilet at the
end of the hall. We were to be locked up for 24 hours and able to acess the toilets three
times a day. Each cell of 4 inmates was given a total of 5 minutes in the toilets. There
are no showers here.

19305749.doc Page 13 of 33
Most of these menthe inmates are uneducated. Here no body speaks any English, and
communicating with prison officials and guards is restricted to Bulgarian or waiving
your hands around in an attempt at sign language. and grunting out a form of
Esperanto. When you ask for someone who speaks your language the “social worker”
only tells you to “you are in Bulgaria so learn Bulgarian.”.

The cells of the 1st Prisoners Ward are on the 4th story of the prison. Each cell is about 1
and half meters wide and maybe, just barely less than 2 meters long. It has a small high
window that is glassless and is always open window overlooking a parking lot.
Lightingto the elements. The cell overlooked an interior parking lot that holds seized
vehicles and the trucks that would be taking me back and forth to court for the next 5
years. This is surrounded by a high concrete fence.

The cell is illuminated by a single 60 watt bulb. There are 4 metal bunks or cots on top
of cots.

There I was placed among strangers. Each of us was bewildered and baffled. After
more than two years of solitary confinement I found this new “company” to be a jarring
experience and an unfamiliar new reality. It was not pleasant for me. I found myself
paranoid and unable to sleep the first 48 hours. After that Ia time I was simply
resignedforced to resign myself to the situation and collapsed. Two days had passed
before I allowed myself to collapse into one of the metal cot. s.

The cells are concrete bunkers and isolation a very very effective means of controlling
another human being.

When Control is everything and when when you first arrive the staff wants you to
immediately know that they do not tolerate any back talk, foolishness or violations of
their rules.control you. However, none of them spoke English and my Bulgaria left
something to be desired. Communication was a problem and so there were going to be
some problems. By the guards waiving their Billy Clubs around you was how they let
you know they do not tolerate any back talk, foolishness or violations of their rules.

On the first day the guards take you are taken down to a basement facility where you
are striped naked and required to take a shower with lye soap and get your hair cut. I
was scared to death and for good reason.

This was not the first time I had been taken to a basement for a shower. On more than
one occasion I had been taken to the basement for a “shower” at the National
Investigative Police facility during the two plus years of my solitary.

The first time I had not thought anything of it. The guards told me there was no hot
water so I would have to shower in the basement. I was handcuffed and the two guards
would lead me down the 5 flights of stairs through a twisted maze of doors into the

19305749.doc Page 14 of 33
basement. We arrived at a single room with a shower. The handcuffs were undone and I
was told to undress, I did.

I remember how one of the guards said he had to go and my shower would have to wait
until he got back. They would have to handcuff me until then. So one of the guards
took hold of one hand and handcuffed me. The other guard then told me to use both my
hands to grab an overhead steam or water pipe. I remember asking the guard why and
he said “just do it” as he slammed the Billy Club against one of the concrete walls.
Somehow I knew what would come next.

Naked and standing on my toes I grabbed the pipe. As I did that one of the guards
pulled over an old rickety wooden chair. Standing on the chair the guard then took the
free end of the handcuffs and draped it over the pipe and handcuffed my other hand. He
got down and put the chair back in its place and then they both laughed. I can still hear
their laugh as they both left.

I would remain that way, cold and naked for maybe half an hour, maybe less or more,
there was simply no way for me to know. My toes were stretched out and I would shift
my weight from one leg to the other in an effort to relieve the cramping in one calf.
Then I would stand on one leg until it became too exhausted and then shift back to the
other leg. Then both legs and then I repeated the process again and again Sometime I
would give my legs a rest by holding that pipe with both my hands and hanging from it
for a few minutes or was it seconds? I can’t remember. It is as impossible to remember
and it was impossible to let yourself hang from the pipe using only the handcuffs, it cut
into the skin and hurt far too much.

After a while the guards came back and said nothing except “sorry” and that I could
take my shower now. Over the next 14 months this would happen to me a few more
times and occasionally it would be accompanied with some punches to my abdomen,
kickboxer style kicks to my thighs and the occasion swat with a plastic truncheon.

At the SCP my fears were not borne out. All I had to do was shower with lye shop and
let them cut my hair.

If anyone knows anything about lye then they know that it burns like hell, or at least
this stuff did and heaven help you if you get it into your eyes. I had a rash for days
because of it and could not get treatment for it.

I recall one of the other new arrivals refused to have his hair cut, we could hear him say
no, and then we heard the bill clubs ricochetBilly Clubs ricocheting off him as the
guards made their point. He wasn’t brought back into the holding cell. Instead the
guards came, got his stuff and moved him into another cell. I did see him some days
later, shaved bald and badly cut and bruised from the beating. He had asked for but
been refused treatment. At SCP attempts at violence or resistance meet only excessive

19305749.doc Page 15 of 33
violence. I hear of little violence between the inmates, and that only because of the
consequences.

While you are showering they take your cloths, all your cloths and not just what you
were wearing, and send it to be de-liced. Arrest is a dirty place.

In 1998 the SCP had no toilets or sinks in the holding cellcells or in any cellcells of the
prison. The foreigners housed hereat the SCP still don’t have toilets in their cells, the
Bulgarians do.

Each cell has a single red 5 gallon bucket shared between the inmates, in 1998 there
were 43 other men in the holding cell with me. We had to use that bucket for all our
body functions as well as a trash receptacle. You are simply were not allowed to leave
the cell in order to defecate. So it’s the bucket.

You are also given your food in the same cell and required to eat it right there near that
bucket.

I cannot describe the smell coming from that bucket. Apparently on that September day
of 1998 when I arrived, the previous arrivals had not felt compelled to empty that
bucket when being transferred to another prison ward. There must have been several
generations of feces floating in urine there in this plastic bucket. That first day the
guards refused to open the cell to let me empty it. It had to wait until morning when we
were allowed to empty the buckets and wash up with cold water. The idea of hot water
for inmates was alien then and considered a luxury. That is also true now.

Possibly the most humiliating experience I have ever had in my life had to be
defecating into that bucket in front of the 3 other men who apparently had nothing
better to do with their time except stare. Never in my life would have I considered as
entertainment observing how someone squats above a bucket to defecate. Maybe they
were studying my technique in order to later improve their own. We were not given any
toilet paper and had to improvise by using tearing parts of clothing. and using it to
wipe. There was no place in the cell to wash up and you had to live with that until the
next day.

As a maximum security prison the SCP has a 24 hour lock down. You don’t leave the
common area of your ward. There is 1 hour a day on the parade grounds. You can get
out of lock down only if you can get work.

The Bulgarian government forbids foreigner inmates to work at most prison jobs, these
reserved for Bulgarians only. Foreigners can be employed at piece work and one gets to
be a barber. There are simply no jobs, and those who can get work will only earn
between 5 to 15 USD a month, it is hardly worth it.

19305749.doc Page 16 of 33
No one from the 1st Prisoners Ward is allowed to work. From what I know Lifers are
not allowed to work and so sit in their cells 24 hrs a day, it is inhuman. Over the years I
have how this 24 hr

Years of a 23 hour lock down is dehumanizing and slowly destroys these even the
strongest of men. After a while they get sick, usually cancer or tuberculosis and die.
That I know of three inmates who have died since I arrived here, and there are probably
many more.

LeavingIn 1998 leaving my cell to go on the parade ground was a new experience for
me. I was never allowed to leave my cell during the two years of my solitary. Once,
sometime in 1997, the Canadian embassy did complain and this . This forced the
Bulgarian guards to take me up to the roof for a 15 minute walk. The next day I was
duly advised by the police investigator that I should inform the Consul that I had been
taken for a 15 minute walk on the roof of the building. I did, the next day no walk., and
the next and so on.

My stay in the SCP holding cell lasted for twothree or four days. On the second , I
don’t remember exactly. One day we were told to dress into prison uniforms and to go
down to be assigned to our wards. As a foreigner I should have been placed in the 13 th
Prisoners Ward, this was designated only for foreigners who are still on trial. I was told
that this was a much better place, there a common area with some movement and
socializing between inmates. Also, there were two Canadian there at the time.This was
a real problem in my case. At 6’1” and 110 kilos I am not a small man. There were no
prison uniforms that were big enough. So I was forced into tearing up a prison shirt,
jacket and pants all in an effort to fit into this costume. The guards would have nothing
with my suggestions that I just wear my own cloths. So I was dispatched with the end
of the pant legs stopped high above my ankle and the jacket starched to tearing at the
shoulders and sleeves. I looked like an American hillbilly going into town with his best
hand me down suit. I remember exactly thinking that the TV character “Jethro” from
the Beverly Hillbillies had nothing on me.

As a foreigner I should have been placed in the 13th Prisoners Ward, this ward is
designated only for foreigners who are still awaiting a sentence. I was told by other
prisoners that it is a much better place, there is a common area with some movement
and socializing is allowed between the inmates. Also, there were two Canadian there at
the time and I was really looking forward to meeting someone from Canada. One of
them was from Vancouver, BC, my hometown.

But that it wasn’t going to happen. When it was my turn, the prison Deputy Warden, a
Mr. KonstativovKonstatinov, said that I was to remain under heavy guard and
supervision in the 1st Prisoners Ward. It was later explained to me that the SCP Warden
considered me a “security risk” to the prison and myself, so heKonstatinov would not
allow me to be placing me placed in the general population of foreigners.

19305749.doc Page 17 of 33
I was crushed and angry because the other three foreigners with me had been moved to
the 13th Prisoners Ward, only I was left behind.

It was ordered thatThat same day I was to be moved into another isolation cell of the 1 st
Prison Ward on the same day, this time with only one other inmate. “Victor” was a
Russian on trial for first degree murder. He had been hired to and did kill a Bulgarian
businessman. I thought this was unusual company for a Canadian businessman charged
with an alleged fraud and embezzlement. I figured there was probably some hidden
message here and I had better be careful. So I started to regularly cast quick glances
over my shoulder and sleep with one eye open. If I could sleep.

Victor was released in September 2003, only a few months ago. The Bulgarian justice
system had sentenced him to 8 years for premeditated murder; he had served just over 4
and Bulgarian authorities did not see any danger in releasing him on parole and
deporting him back to the Ukraine.

Since coming to the SCP I have seen several convicted murders receive sentences less
than my 17 years. I have watched more than my share of accused murders released on
bail and convicted murders released on parole or deported to their own countries. I still
sit here and wonder what my fate will be.

My days and nights on the 1st Prisoners Ward were filled with hearing the sounds of
men hollowing of the like demented wolves staring up at a full moon. These were
mostly drug addicts who without a daily fix had no way to subdue or otherwise satisfy
the demons that had suddenly goingcome alive as they went cold turkey. Beatings
would eventually brought bring their silence. There but never peace. These were some
seriously deranged people here and the SCP has no psychiatric facilitiesfacility or
competent psychiatrists to deal with them. They were either beaten or drugged in
silence.

One of the more difficult and depressing experiences I had during this time was the
knowledge that I was in the same ward as men who had pending death sentences or life
sentences. I would go out to the parade grounds with them every day. The atmosphere
was overwhelmingly depressing. Mixing violent men with those inmates accused of
lesser non-violent crimes wasis and remains a practice at the SCP as at other Bulgarian
penitentiaries.

Inmates are not segregated according to their crime or sentence but are instead all
grouped together. I had thought this practice long abandoned by Europe long
ago.European countries. Apparently not, and what’s worse is that this the atmosphere of
fear and tension and fear was this creates. It is done intentionally . This practice was
created and fostered by the prisons administrators and is fostered by the Bulgarian
Ministry of Justice itself. I remember there were occasional visits from international
observers. The prison officials would lock us up and the guards tell us to be silent. Then
these inspectors from the EU would come. The SCP let them meet prison trustees who

19305749.doc Page 18 of 33
told them how the SCP was ideal and much improved. Of course nobody thought to ask
me or the other inmates who were not so “trusted”. We might have spoken the truth.

This lasted several weeks. I complained to Canadian consular officials and my lawyer.
The complaints did not work. A small bribe did. Discretely 500 USD was delivered to
then prison Warden “Mr. Hristov” and I was moved to the 13th Prisoners Ward.

Two weeks later I was suddenly removed back to the 1st Prisoners Ward and solitary
confinement by Deputy Warden Konstativov.

I learned at a meeting with the Deputy Ward, and the “social worker” on the same day,
that it was my personal security and that of the prison that caused Deputy Warden
Konstativov to move me. He had “reports” I would . No violate and first time offenders
are mixed with repeat offenders as a means of control using fear to create informers in
the cell blocks. This is true even among the foreign inmates. Those inmates who have
short sentenced and expect to be physically attacked. At a meeting with him, I argued
that the 1st Prisoners Ward is paroled are used only to punish inmates and not protect
them. He should place those who were planning the assault in isolation and not me. The
argument fell on deaf ears.

What really happened was that in October 1998 I had complained about something.
Maybe it was the lack of hot water, or the bribes that had to be paid to some prison
officials (through other prisoners). That was the only way anyone could fix getting a
"good" room. That means you live with 5 people instead of 10. It was the only way an
inmate could get a cell phone, a satellite TV dish and receiver, a refrigerator or even an
electric heater for the winter. Whatever it was resulted in one morning where I was
taken to a separate room and stripped searched by the guards, and then placed into
isolation.

At that meeting I got pissed off and in my broken Bulgarian told the warden and the
social worker who had wanted the money to go to hell.

I then advised them that I was going on a hunger strike. They could keep me in
isolation for as long as they wanted.

My hunger strike lasted 43 days before they had to place me in the hospital. I continued
my protests until March of 1999, when I really started to look and feel bad. It is a long
time to go without food. I am 185 cm and went from 110 kilos to 76.

The Warden agreed to return me to the 13th Prisoners Ward and to a cell with only one
spy on other prisoner if I agreed to first end my hunger strike. This happened after a
few "friendly" meetings between Canadian and Bulgarian officials who figured out I
might actually take my hunger strike to its logical conclusion.

19305749.doc Page 19 of 33
The social worker who wanted the bribes was "retired" within a few weeks of my
hunger strike and the prisoner “trustee” working with him transferred to another ward
after other inmates set fire to his cell. That's the story I was given. The fire was real
enough.

Foreign Prisoner Wards

At the SCP there are two wards dedicated only to cells housing foreign prisoners. I
have lived in both and the conditions there are equally disturbing.

Here you will find 179 foreign men divided between 20 cells in two groups. The largest
group by far is Turkish citizens, and then come the Albanians and citizens of the former
Yugoslavia. There are also some Arabs, Iranians, Iraqis and Afghanis, most of these
here only because they came as refugees who illegally cross the border into Bulgaria
from Turkey.

The seeming good behavior and silence of prisoners is only their own self-delusion and
resignation. It leads them to believe that their resignation to this situation is bravery.
They deny their helpless, believing everyday that something will change tomorrow and
things will get better. This self-denial is a state of mind that leads the foreign inmates at
the SCP to believe that conditions at the SCP somehow allow them some dignity.
However, alone and between all them you will find fear and anxiety over a surface of
tranquil acceptance. When talking to them you can sense the constant feeling of
anguish that accompanies each day. Everyone wishes he could do something to change
things but does not even bother to try because he knows that he can’t. It creates a daily
feeling of dread for the next day, it is fearful.

I have learned that calmness in the face of adversity comes not from bravery or strength
but from weakness. It is resignation. I read once that “the man who walks calmly to the
scaffold does so not because he is brave but because he is resigned to the fact that there
is no helping it, no way out”. That how you feel inside the SCP, the Bulgarian judicial
system gives you no way out of the suffering and inhumanity you are about to
experience. You become reconciled to your situation and disbelief of wears off and then
reality settles in.

Early on you learn that there is little point in complaining to prison officials and trying
to make your case. As a foreigner you have a far more difficult time of it since you
can’t speak their language and they can’t speak yours. After a while you grow up and
learn to give up, any chance for change lies with the people outside of the prison who
never see you and you never see them. To them you are nothing more than a statistic,
that “One Canadian” among 179 other foreign criminals who need to be punished.
Nothing changes and no one listens no matter how obsequious your lamentations or
begging when you approach them for help.

19305749.doc Page 20 of 33
Such helplessness is one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced in my life. It
causes a person to think deeply and reflect on just how Bulgarian society, any society,
can do this and how European society can allow it to be done all the in name of justice.
There is near total inhumanity towards the inmates here who are still human beings and
deserve to be treated as such. It is a dreadful situation, one that causes young and old
men to sleep at three pm in the afternoon. Many have passed what now seems like
endless year after year in the same room only lying on their backs, on their stomachs,
and with legs dangling over the edge all as they smoke and drink tea. Each day the
same.

At the SCP the word of an inmate is never believed by prison officials unless it is to rat
on another inmate in exchange for “better treatment”. I have seen inmates “set up to
take falls”. Some guards, “social workers” and prisoner trustees get together and plan to
stash drugs or money on an inmate so he can be disciplined. This happens whenever an
inmate stands up to the authority in the prison.

When at the 1st Prisoners Ward I befriended a Bulgarian prisoner, “Krassi”. In October
he had been setup to take a fall for gambling and carrying money, both serious offenses
that would ruin his chances for parole later this year. According to Krassi, some of the
deputy wardens and his social worker did not want to see him released. The only way
to prevent it was to convict him for some minor infraction. So they “caught” him
gambling and wrote a report that was wholly untrue.

I respect Krassi because he did not resign himself to this like some other inmates would
have. He collected evidence and witnesses then sued the prison in a civil court and
WON! The court found the allegations untrue and the prisons actions unwarranted, so
the charges were dropped. The Wardens were livid and they immediately ordered
Krassi be moved to another prison. This was done only to keep the “virus” of fighting
back from spreading to other prisoners at the SCP. They need not have worried, most of
the Bulgarian inmates here are not like Krassi, and he could read and write unlike most
of the other Bulgarian inmates. This is also true for most foreign inmates.

Human dignity and hygiene are serious questions at the SCP. Foreign inmates have no
privacy for body functions. This was true for the whole prison in 1998. Now it is true
only for the foreign inmates. Our cells have not been equipped with sinks, hot and cold
water, flushing toilets or showers. Imagine 79 men, two holes in the ground they call
toilets, no toilet paper and an irregular water supply. Consider one toilet is for urinating
the other is for defecating and there is no flushing. There are two sinks, and two facets
with cold water only. There is one shower with an irregular water supply and no hot
water. That means not bathing at all or bathing with freezing cold water even in winter.
I remember there were occasional visits from international observers. The prison
officials would lock us up and the guards tell us to be silent. Then these inspectors from
the EU would come. The SCP let them meet prison trustees who told them how the
SCP was ideal and much improved. Of course nobody thought to ask me or the other
inmates who were not so “trusted”. We might have spoken the truth. This is still true

19305749.doc Page 21 of 33
today. I have never once seen an international observer allowed to conduct a spot
inspection of the SCP. They are always turned back at the doors and told to return later.
By the time they return the cells and common areas are cleaned up, even hurriedly
painted. The “correct” prisoners are made available for interviews.

My first stay in the isolation of the 1st Prisoners Ward lasted several weeks. I had
complained to Canadian consular officials and my lawyer. The complaints did not
work. A small bribe did.

Discretely 500 USD was delivered to then prison Warden “Mr. Hristosov” and I was
moved to the 13th Prisoners Ward. I can’t prove he got the money. But I was moved the
day after I paid it to the inmate who told me what to do.

Later, sometime in 1999 or 2000 there was a scandal involving Warden Hristosov and
some prisoners who apparently bribed him and some guards. Warden Hristosov was
dismissed from his post after being charged for crime also connected with taking
money, the story made all the local papers.

I am not sure the Warden Hristosov was acquitted or reached some sort of settlement
with the prosecutors. But he was removed as Warden of the SCP and is now a
practicing criminal attorney.

I do not condone what Warden Hristosov did then or what he does now as an attorney.
But I can understand it because that’s the way the system in Bulgaria works. Nothing
ever gets done within the “system” by an official just because it is the “right”, the
“moral” thing to do or because it is a “duty” a Bulgarian official has taken an oath to
observe.

No, things get done only when and if an inmate or his family can pay for it to get done.
If you can’t then you have to wait until some other official is simply left with no choice
except to do whatever it was he was supposed to do in the first place. That can take
years.

Back to Isolation

In November 1999, about two or three weeks after being move out of isolation I was
suddenly moved back into isolation in the 1st Prisoners Ward. This time I was placed
into solitary confinement by Deputy Warden Konstatinov.

On the same day I was moved I had a meeting with the Deputy Ward, and “social
worker Yankulov”, and learned that I was moved into solitary for my personal security
and that of the prison.

Deputy Warden Konstatinov moved me because he had “reports” I would be physically

attacked by other inmates.

19305749.doc Page 22 of 33
At the meeting with him, I argued that the 1st Prisoners Ward is used only to punish
inmates and not protect them. He should place those who were planning to assault me
in isolation and not me. The argument fell on deaf ears.

What really happened was that in October 1998 I had complained to Canada Foreign
Affars about something.

Maybe it was the lack of hot water, or the bribes that had to be paid to some prison
officials (through other prisoners). That was the only way anyone could fix getting a
"good" cell. That means you live with 5 people instead of 10.

Brides and fees was also the only way an inmate could get or use a cell phone to talk
with his family.

From 1998 until early 2003 no inmate in a Bulgarian prison was allowed to make or
receive phone calls, not even to a lawyer. You were completely isolated from everyone.
Some inmates paid and so got what they wanted, even a satellite TV dish and receiver
were possible. I know of one Russian “Mafia Boss” who gota refrigerator, an electric
heater for the winter and a microwave oven.

Everything was possible at the SCP if you had the money to pay. If you paid enough
you could even arrange to have sex with a wife or girlfriend in a room at the hospital or
even at the warden’s office.

Whatever it was that I complained about had resulted in one morning where I was taken
to a separate room and stripped searched by the guards, and then placed into isolation.

At that meeting I got pissed off and in my broken Bulgarian told the warden and the
social worker who had wanted the money to go to hell.

I then advised them that I was going on a hunger strike. They could keep me in
isolation for as long as they wanted.

My hunger strike lasted 43 days before they had to place me in the prison hospital. I
continued my protests until March of 1999, when I really started to look and feel bad. It
is a long time to go without food. I went from 110 kilos to 76 kilos.

The Deputy Warden Konstatinov agreed to return me to the 13th Prisoners Ward and to
a cell with only one other prisoner if I agreed to first end my hunger strike. This
happened after a few "friendly" meetings between Canadian and Bulgarian officials
who figured out I might actually take my hunger strike to its logical conclusion.

The social worker who wanted the bribes was "retired" within a few weeks of my
hunger strike and the prisoner “trustee” working with him transferred to another ward

19305749.doc Page 23 of 33
after other inmates set fire to his cell. That's the story I was given. The fire was real
enough.

Foreign Prisoner Wards

At the SCP there are two wards dedicated only to cells housing foreign prisoners. I
have lived in both and the conditions there are equally disturbing.

Here you will find 179 foreign men divided between 20 cells in two groups. The largest
group by far is the Turkish, and then comes the Albanians and citizens of the former
Yugoslavia.

There are also some Arabs, Iranians, Iraqis and Afghanis, most of these are here only
because they came as refugees who illegally cross the border into Bulgaria from
Turkey.

The seeming good behavior and silence of prisoners is only their own self-delusion and
resignation. They believe their resignation to this situation at the SCP is proof of their
bravery. They deny their helplessness, and choose to believe that everyday something
will change and things will get better.

To me this is nothing but a form of self-denial. It is the state of mind that leads foreign
inmates at the SCP to believe that conditions at the prison are somehow allowing them
their dignity. They seem to forget that we have no toilets or showers in our cells, and
that Bulgarian inmates do. Human dignity and hygiene are serious questions at the SCP.
Foreign inmates have no privacy for body functions. This was true for the whole prison
in 1998. Now it is true only for the foreign inmates. Our cells have not been equipped
with sinks, hot and cold water, flushing toilets or showers.

There are nearly 80 of us who share 10 cells on the third floor of a building that looks
as if it could collapse at the slightest act of Providence.

There is only one shower found in the common toilet area of my ward. The “shower” is
nothing more than a long pipe sticking out from the wall opposite the two holes in the
ground that are the toilets shared by the 80 of us. The toilets and the shower are wide
open with no partitions surrounding them. You use them in full view of the other
inmates. There is no semblance of privacy or hygiene. The shower has no shower head
and nowhere to put your soap. The whole arrangement at the SCP is very primitive and
embarrassing. While you are showering there is an inmate defecating a few feet from
you. There is another inmate washing his dishes or cloths in the sink next to the shower.
There is no laundry facility at the SCP, we have to wash our cloths in discarded plastic
buckets previously holding paint. We even have to pay for these plastic buckets.

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It is filthy. The shower and the toilets are within feet of where 80 inmates dump their
refuse. Yes, the room housing the shower and the toilets is also the garbage dump It is
infested with rats, cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes in summer.

These conditions are aggravated by the weather. There is no glass in the barred
windows of the common area. The shower and toilet areas are always exposed to the
elements. In winter you are freezing as you wait your turn at the single shower. Then
still wet you have to run to your cell which frankly is not all that much warmer.

The summers give rise to even more unsanitary conditions. The flies, mosquitoes and
cockroaches are in out force and everywhere. They are drawn by the smell from the
open garbage and toilets.

Imagine 80 men using two holes in the ground that Bulgarian officials call toilets. We
are not supplied toilet paper and there is always an irregular supply of water. Consider
that one toilet is for urinating the other is for defecating and there is no flushing. There
are two sinks, and two facets with cold water only.

The one shower also has an irregular supply of water and often no hot water. That
means not bathing at all or bathing with freezing cold water even in winter.

There is no privacy for our bodily functions and never moment alone. We You never
have one moment to yourself where you could say “I am going to be alone for a few
minutes”.

Foreign citizens are treated by the Bulgarian prison system as subhuman and forced to
live that way. I think dogs in Canada’s SCPASCPA’s are treated better than we are.

At the SCP you are living in damp concrete buildings and with 6 to 12 men per cell.
Lights flicker and moisture seeps down the walls.

Each cell is about no bigger than two and a half to three meters wide and 4 meters long.
Some are a lot smaller. There is the “that one “red bucket” we haveeach inmate has to
share and no toilet or sink in the cell.

Most inmates come from low income families and are just not as fastidious as they
should be about cleanliness. So each cell is literally overrun with cockroaches no
matter where you are. It is just a fact of life in a Bulgarian prison.

Almost everyone smokes except for me. And I mean smoke, 3 or 4 packs a day. There
is not a single non-smoker cell in the block and we are really overcrowded,. I am forced
to live with 5 smokers. We are over crowedovercrowded and the situation is made
worse in the winter because you don’t dare open a window for fear of loosing the little
heat you have. The conditions are unhealthy.

19305749.doc Page 25 of 33
The shower and toilets are out in the common area. It is filthy. The garbage dump for
79 inmates is also collected in the same place. It is infested with rats, cockroaches, flies
and mosquitoes in summer. These conditions are aggravated by the weather. There is no
glass in the barred windows, so the shower and toilet areas are exposed to the elements.
In winter you are freezing as you wait your turn at the single shower. Then wet you
have to run to t\your cell which is not all that much warmer. The summer gives rise to
even more unsanitary conditions. The flies and cockroaches are in force everywhere
drawn by the smell from the open garbage and toilets.

The food is atrocious.The food is atrocious. The daily food allowance for one inmate in
a Bulgarian penitentiary is 0.50 USD per day. Meals are served three times a day.
Macaroni for breakfast, rice with something in it for lunch and beans or lentils for
dinner. All served in the water they were boiled in. Bread. NoThere is never any fresh
food, no or desert. The daily food allowance for one inmate is 0.50 USD per day. So

For lunch and dinner there is a single serving of beans, rice or potatoes with something
like Soya tossed in like Soya.it. Not the kind of Soya you buy in Canada but the chunky
kind find you will find in your dogs food.

There is never any fresh vegetable or fruit. During my eight years here I have only seen
once or twice in a year that you might get a piece of pumpkin or apple that is either
over ripe and already rotting or so hard as to be inedible. There are no breakfast cereals.
In terms of nutrition we never get any fiber here and that is probably the reason why so
many of us have problems with our digestive systems.

I remember, about two years ago they severed fried eggs. Everyone one got so sick they
stopped. serving them.

In 2002, for the first time, meat appeared in the diet here. Usually a turkey joint cut up
into a small 30 or 50 grams a piece, one per inmate. This is your only source of meat.

Breakfast typically consists of macaroni with sugar, yogurt diluted with water or
margarine. What calories there are comes mostly from the vegetable oil that saturates
everything. the kitchen here preapres. There is no nutritional benefit from this food.

Each Friday we receive a fish portion. I had always been told by some of the workers in
the prison kitchen that the fish and meat were not intended for human consumption but
for animal food. The fish and meat arrive in unmarked boxes and are bought from
suppliers who supply the fish and meat products for dog and cat food. This makes sense
since I know it is impossible to feed a man a healthy meal with meat, vegetable and
desert on less than 0.50 USD per day.

Not only is the food at the SCP utterly lacking in nutritional value but often it is also
disgusting. On more than one occasion I have found human hair and , pieces of rat
feces or a cockroach in the food. There is no concern about cleanliness. Cockroaches

19305749.doc Page 26 of 33
are often cooked in with the food. Usually, with beans, the prisoners will through out
the water and wash the beans first. You are liable to have cramps or worse if you don’t.
The beans and rice are always severed with the same water they were boiled in.

Here you eat with metal spoons. You do not have the luxury of a fork and knife, ever.

The foreign inmates who can afford it never eat the prison food and prefer to have their
families send them food. You are allowed two 10 kilo packages of food per month,
more if you wait until the visits. This is great for the Turkish citizens and those from the
former Yugoslavia. Their families visit them about once a month. So a lot of the food
for the foreigners prison food delivered to my ward only finds its way into the trash,
nobody is willing to eat it. But there is no choicechoices for those inmates like me who,
being so far away from home and having no family who in Bulgaria to visit them must
eat whatever you we can get. There is no concern about cleanliness. Cockroaches are
often cooked in with the food. Usually, with beans, the prisoners will through out the
water and wash the beans first. You are liable to have cramps or worse if you don’t. The
beans and rice are always severed with the same water they were boiled in.I am lucky
to have made a few friends here who occasional come and bring me food.

The visiting regime at the SCP is very restrictive. It is twice a month and lasts 30
minutes. Visits are conducted on fixed days and in groups of 15 inmates. Visitors
sometime have to line up for 6 hours before being allowed to enter the visiting room.
Once inside they are required to on broken old wooden stools or benches removed from
the prison auditorium. The seats are placed in front two wire mesh fences separated by
about a meter and a half. There is an old telephone in front of the visitor and one in
front of you.. These rarely work very well so most people are simply screaming across
the space that divides them.

There is no possibility of physical contact with a loved one, and forget conjugal visits.
Food parcels and packages are searched twice. Once when handed in by your visitor
and again when you are called to collect it. You are not allowed any fresh meat or
cooking oil. Every food item is opened, even if in its original packaging. The guards do
not show any respect for the inmates or the food. On a few occasions guards have been
reported for stealing cigarettes cartons and even food of inmates.

Few prisoners at the SCP have their teeth. This is mostly a result of long exposure to
this diet. The lack of fresh food and proteins causes their skin to look shallow and in
time their teeth to fall out.

The prison does not supply us with vitamins as a supplement to the poor diet. Vitamins
are not sold at the SCP canteen. In fact nothing of nutritional value is sold in the
canteen except powered milk. The canned meats are all expired by the time they reach
the prison. Obviously prison inmates in Bulgaria are a market for food products that
have an expired self life and cannot legally be sold any where else.

19305749.doc Page 27 of 33
The same is true for the medicines they give you. If you look closely at the labels you
discover all the stuff has already expired. But most prisoners can’t read, so there is little
risk. Also, you don’t have a real choice.

Bulgarian correctional facilities like the SCP are notorious for the inadequacy of
medical treatment provided prisoners. After having spent nearly 3 months in the prison
hospital I had direct personal experience of the shocking state of medical care. I had
men die in the bedroom next to me. On more than one occasion I watched men die who
did not need to die if given the proper medical care.

Most of these men wereare allowed to die because they had no money or no family to
complain. I remember one inmate, someone my age. He entered the hospital with two
good legs, septicemias set in after an operation on one leg. They amputated to the knee
then up to the thigh. Later I saw him going to court without any legs. Several months
on I learned he had died.

We also had a Turkish citizen die of a heart attack only because it took the guards two
hours before opening the door to his cell. The other prisoners with him were banging on
the door for hours before the guard showed up. By then it was too late.

Two months ago two Bulgarians died of food poising in the Ward below us.me. We
could here the banging and yelling of inmates. At lasted for at least an hour before it
stopped thestopping. The next morning we learned of their deaths. When you ask a
prison officialofficials theythey will tell you the inmate “died in hospital”. We know
better.

Our circumstances are terrible. But as foreign inmates we do the best they can to get
along with each other.

No body from the Bulgaria’s correctional service is willing to listen. When they do they
still do nothing.

My education and age mean nothing to the men and women who administer the SCP. I
have been here a long time. Most of the guards and I have developed relationships of
mutual respect. That’s because we see and deal with each other everyday. Over time
you can measure a man and weight his strengths and weaknesses. The problem is not
the guards, but their bosses. The men and women you rarely see and only hear about.
To them we, particularly the foreigners here, are little more than animals to be punished
in the name of the greater good for Bulgarian society.

To be continued

Things are really bad at the SCP, particularly for non-Bulgarians who are the last to see
any help coming from SCP officials or the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice. Canadians,
like all foreign inmates, have to pay their way in the SCP.

19305749.doc Page 28 of 33
I have on numerous occasions written challenges to Bulgarian Ministry of Justice
Officials to explain to me why as a Canadian I am expected to pay for everything I
need as an SCP inmate and why nothing has been done in the 6 years I have been at the
SCP to improve the living conditions of foreigner inmates. Yet, the Bulgarian sections
of the prison have been renovated with toilets and showers in the cells.

The Ministry of Justice always answers that there is no money to improve the
conditions of non-Bulgarian inmates. Foreign prison inmates will be the last to see any
changes.

Our circumstances are terrible. But as foreign inmates we do the best they can to get
along with each other. However what is lost upon most of the foreign inmates is that we
have had to pay for the paint and plaster to have our cells repaired or that each of us has
had to bribe a Bulgarian prisoner to make the wooden frames for our windows and to
steal the glass to put into those windows.

No one of my fellow inmates wants to complain of or publicly recount the fact that
every piece of furniture in our cells had to be bought from another inmate and paid for
with cigarettes or hidden cash. This is true for everything except the rusting metal cots
that we each painted with paint stolen by the Bulgarian inmates and sold to us.

Even the mattresses we sleep on were paid for, even if they are only stuffed with old
rags and discarded prison uniforms. You had to pay if you wanted a clean mattress
unstained and free of the odor of its prior owner’s urine.

Often I have told my fellow inmates to stop rejoicing like small children at a Christmas
party each time they get a package of food, medicines or cosmetics from their families.
I tell them that the Bulgarian state should be providing us with much of what our
families are buying and we are buying from Bulgarian inmates. It is wrong and we
should complain. If we don’t then things will never change..

Yet none of my fellow inmates wants to long to reflect on this. They prefer instead to
scoff with arrogant indifference at the uneaten prison food that is regularly poured into
the toilet or thrown into trash. My fellow inmates prefer to ignore or forget the fact that
his wife or his mother and father had to go without something so they could pay for all
this.

Some twisted philosophy or defect in reasoning causes them to believe that they are
owed something by their families when having placed themselves in this situation.

However, when alone and between them I can find real fear and anxiety beneath the
façade of their tranquil acceptance of what is an unacceptable situation.

When talking to them individually I can sense in each one the constant feeling of
anguish that accompanies each day. Everyone wishes he could do something to change

19305749.doc Page 29 of 33
things but does not even bother to try because he knows that he can’t. It creates a daily
feeling of dread for the next day. Because it is fearful they prefer instead to rejoice in
their ignorance and arrogance.

So they pay the bribes and accept their circumstances, never realizing that by
participating in this corruption they are themselves giving others a reason to keep this
corrupt system in tact. That nothing will change until a decision is taken by them to not
accept corruption and abuse.

I have learned from this that their calmness in the face of this adversity comes not from
being brave or strong but from weakness. Their acceptance is in fact only resignation.

I once read that “the man who walks calmly to the scaffold does so not because he is
brave but because he is resigned to the fact that there is no helping it, no way out”.

That’s how you feel inside the SCP, the Bulgarian judicial system gives you no way out
of the suffering and inhumanity you are about to experience. You become reconciled to
your situation. Disbelief of wears off and then reality settles in.

Early on I learned that there is little point in complaining to prison officials and trying
to make your case. As a foreigner you have a far more difficult time of it since you
can’t speak their language and they can’t speak yours.

After a while you grow up and learn to give up, any chance for change lies with the
people outside of the prison who never see you and you never see them. To the SCP and
Bulgarian Correction Services officials you are nothing more than a statistic. That “One
Canadian” among 179 other foreign criminals who need to be punished. Nothing
changes and no one listens no matter how obsequious your lamentations or begging
when you approach them for help.

Such helplessness is one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced in my life. It
causes a person to think deeply and reflect on just how Bulgarian society, any society,
can do this and how European society can allow it to be done all the in name of justice.
There is near total inhumanity towards the inmates here who are still human beings and
deserve to be treated as such. It is a dreadful situation, one that causes young and old
men to sleep at three pm in the afternoon. Many have passed what now seems like
endless year after year in the same room only lying on their backs, on their stomachs,
and with legs dangling over the edge all as they smoke and drink tea. Each day the
same.

I am 51 years old. My education and age mean nothing to the men and women who
administer the SCP. In 199 I started to repeatedly complain to Canada Foreign Affairs
to help me get the SCP administration to allow me to have access to universities in
Canada so I could continue my education through correspondence courses on the

19305749.doc Page 30 of 33
internet. The consular officer from Canada Foreign Affairs and the SCP Warden
laughed at me.

Failing that I then started to try to get work as a computer technical or start a computer
class. I figured I could service the prisons computers, but was told the job was reserved
for Bulgarians. It did not matter that I had more experience or education that Bulgaria
inmate. So I offered to start a computer class, I was told to buy the computers and then
the SCP might consider starting a class but only for Bulgarian inmates and not
foreigners. This was true for every non-labor intensive job in the prison.

Then I started ask the SCP Administration if it would allow me to be self-employed

within the prison. Again no, there was no way I could work for myself even if the
regulations of the SCP permitted.

In prison work and education are important for a number of reasons.

Work is important because two work days are counted as three days of your sentence.
That means you will be released significantly sooner, and it is the only source of
income in prison. Also time passes far more quickly when you are doing something else
other than just sitting around.

Education is important because this also can count towards your early release. Getting a
higher education means you can stay in touch with the world and prepare yourself for
when you are released. Also the year pass far more quickly and do not feel as though a
complete waste of your life.

I have never been given any opportunities for work or education in the 6 years I have
been at the SCP. The only success I had was to be the first inmate in a Bulgarian prison
to be allowed a computer. That took two years. From 1999 to 2001 I fought the
Bulgarian correctional system in court and with the help of Canada Foreign Affairs. I
finally prevailed only after suing the Bulgarian State in Canadian court and demanding
that the computer was a necessary facility to conduct civil prosecution of the Bulgarian
State.

By 2002 other inmates were being allowed computers.

In October 2002 the SCP Warden was ordered by the Bulgarian Minister of Justice to
take my computer because he believed I had a connection on the internet. When they
seized my computer they had to seize all the computers. The other inmates, like me,
threatened to sue the SCP if we were not returned the computers. So in December 2002
they set up a cell as a “computer center” where we could put and access our personal
computers. I am writing you today from that center, and not across the internet. But I
still have no work and the SCP still refuses to allow me or any foreign inmate to secure
an education.

19305749.doc Page 31 of 33
I have been at the SCP 6 years now, it is a long time. Most of the guards and I have
developed relationships of mutual respect. That’s because we see and deal with each
other everyday. Over time you can measure a man and weight his strengths and
weaknesses. The problem is not the guards, but their bosses. The men and women you
rarely see and only hear about. To them we, particularly the foreigners here, are little
more than animals to be punished in the name of the greater good for Bulgarian society.

It is clear that Bulgaria and Bulgarians are still waiting for the changes promised when
communism collapsed in 1989 and need the resources that freedom and democracy are
supposed to bring. Until then the Bulgaria State and the Bulgarian people continue to
be at the mercy of some incompetent or corrupt state officials who rely not on law but
instead on the remnants of and their contacts with men who belong to a brutal and
corrupted communist past.

This is particularly true for the Bulgarian criminal justice system and its correctional
institutions. The rules, practices and facilities are corrupted and inefficient leftovers
from a communist past, little has changed. It is by the thousand that the “unconnected
poor” are locked up in prisons so the government can “prove” it is fighting crime. Men
and women are still imprisoned solely for the political convenience and occasionally
even for the profit of corrupt prosecution and judicial officials.

Like the unfinished apartment blocks, Bulgarian courts and its prisons are unchanging
microcosms of Bulgaria’s modern past and the crimes committed against its people
over the last 50 years.

Things will change and that change can come about at any moment. But what remains
unsure is what the changes will be, how it will occur or when. Until then the humane
cost will only grow.

The ugly old concrete walls of the SCP are only surpassed in ugliness by the
indifference of Correction Service officials towards the human rights and dignity of the
prisoners.

Apparently, Canada’s Foreign Affairs and their German counterparts believed and still
believes that the fall of communism in Bulgaria would see the leopard lose its spots.
That the Bulgarian judicial and prison system, and its officials, would suddenly
embrace humanity and compassion in place of nearly 50 years of brutal suppression.

Canada is and remains wrong. My family and I have paid and continue to pay the cost
for the ignorance of officials at Canada Foreign Affairs.

It is true that there are Bulgarian officials who want to see changes. Alone they are
helpless against those officials who are becoming rich thanks to the culture of
corruption so pervasive within Bulgaria’s police and judiciary. Canadian Foreign
Affairs officials should have actively been supporting those officials in Bulgaria who

19305749.doc Page 32 of 33
want to bring about change. Canada Foreign Affairs could have helped these good men
and women by believing my family and me when pointing which Bulgarian official is
breaching not only international law when violating a Canadian citizen’s human rights
but also Bulgarian national law when knowingly mistreating a Canadian in one of
Bulgaria’s prisons.

This has been and remains a lonely battle for one Canadian family and all I want is to
come home to Canada.

Michael Kapoustin

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