Torture victim out of prison (From Times Series)

Torture victim out of prison

11:35am Wednesday 15th August 2001

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A Croydon gem dealer who spent three years locked up without trial in a Pakistani jail on drug smuggling charges, has been acclimatising to life on the outside, after being released on bail last week.

David Dufaur, 54, from Croydon, was freed from Landhi jail in Karachi on Monday, August 6, five months after the Pakistani Supreme Court accepted there was insufficient evidence to imprison him and granted bail on March 3.

His first court hearing since his release took place on Saturday, August 11, and he now faces an anxious wait in Pakistan until the trial continues on September 15.

The married father-of-four was supported in his fight for freedom by Twickenham based charity, Fair Trials Abroad, who champion and publicise the cases of over 100 Britons held at any given time.

Sabine Zanker, who handled his case, told the Guardian: “David's trying to come to grip with the outside world. He says it's so tiring after the time he has spent in prison.”

He spent 1,132 days enduring “horrendous” conditions in prison, and now has to wait for the September hearing to determine whether the charges will be dropped, allowing him to return to Britain and his family.

Ms Zanker coninued: “His case has been given priority, which is good news. We are hopeful that he will be totally acquitted.”

”He's a very strong man, it's incredible. He's very calm about the situation and not bitter. He believes he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Speaking to BBC radio, Mr Dufaur told of the terrible conditions and torture he endured, sleeping on the floor for three years in a room 10ft by 10ft with seven other people.

He said: “It was a terrible ordeal from start to finish.”

Mr Dufaur told how the police tried to force a confession out of him when he was first arrested.

“I was blindfolded and tortured. I was hung upside down and they beat the soles of my feet.”

He never confessed to drug smuggling, despite once being threatened that he would be injected with the HIV virus.

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