Son calls for release of Briton jailed in Morocco for ‘homosexual acts’
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Version 0 of 1. The son of a British man jailed for four months in Morocco for “homosexual acts” has launched a campaign for his release and spoken of the chaotic scenes in the courtroom and the family’s grave concerns for his wellbeing. Adrian Cole, 41, from Windsor in Berkshire, told the Guardian that Moroccan police had used evidence from his father’s Facebook page, as well as his phone and emails, to build a case against him. Ray Cole, 69, from Deal in Kent, was stopped by the police on 18 September with his friend Jamal Jam Wald Nass, a Moroccan man in his twenties, and taken into custody after officials found a photo on his phone, believed to show some evidence of homosexuality. Homosexual acts are illegal in Morocco. Nass was also imprisoned for four months. Cole and Nass had met on Facebook and it was on Cole’s second visit to see him that he was arrested. Every day during his visit Cole, who volunteers for a charity driving elderly people to hospital, would post pictures and updates on his Facebook page detailing the places the pair had visited. “But on Thursday September 18 his Facebook page stopped being updated. The following day it was my sister Gemma’s birthday and we still hadn’t heard from him, so by the Saturday, concerned, we phone the police and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,” Adrian Cole said. “At that point Interpol got involved and started phoning hospitals. We thought he’d been hurt or had an accident.” But on Sunday the family received a phoned call from the consulate confirming Cole had been found. “I felt absolute relief, but then the next sentence was: ‘He’s in prison’. He’d left a tearful message on his house-mate’s answer machine saying he’s in a prison cell but doesn’t know where the prison is and all he knows is he’s been charged with being gay. “The Moroccan officials hadn’t told the authorities where he was, so it took until the Tuesday to find out. During that period he had no consular assistance.” By the time the family found out his location, Cole had already appeared in court. They were told there was “evidence on his phone that was incriminating” and that “the police went through his Facebook account and emails to build a case”. The family flew out for a second hearing. “It was very stressful,” Adrian Cole said. “There are no doors on the courtroom and busy corridors outside so it was very noisy and the judge deals with up to 200 cases a day, but they don’t tell people what time the case will be heard so everyone is in the room for every case. It was standing room only, there were children crying, phones ringing, and police officers kept shouting at people, trying to move them back because the crowd kept surging forward. It was chaotic.” After five hours, Cole was finally brought in with Nass. “He looked in a state; confused, dishevelled, he hadn’t shaved. He looked like an old man,” his son said, breaking down. Adrian Cole said his father had previously had a stroke, and had heart problems and cellulitis (inflammation of the soft tissue), which requires antibiotics to be administered quickly. The case was adjourned for two days, after the translator failed to show up. The family extended their stay and paid for a private translator. The day before the hearing, they were able to visit the retired grandfather in prison. “He was shell shocked. He didn’t understand, he kept saying: ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, we were just waiting for a bus’. He didn’t understand how they they’d been singled out in the street as gay,” Adrian Cole said. “He was still in the clothes he’d been arrested in over a week before, he hadn’t washed because it’s illegal to be naked in front of other people and he didn’t have a towel to wrap himself in in the shower. He was, and still is, sleeping on a concrete floor.” The family were advised not to attend the hearing the next day and that the judge would announce the verdict at 3.30pm. “At 7.45pm we got a phone call from the consulate saying he’d been given four months in prison, and had been found guilty of ‘homosexual acts’. We were numb, in shock, my mother broke down, and I felt like a complete failure – we’d gone out there to bring him home.” They were not able to visit him again after the ruling: “So he had to go back to the prison and cope on his own.” Back in Britain, the family have appealed against the ruling and launched a campaign, including an online petition and a crowd-funding page to pay for the legal fees – which have already run into the thousands of pounds – in an attempt to persuade Moroccan authorities to deport Cole. The date for the appeal has not yet been set but is expected to take place in the next few weeks. Adrian Cole, keen to stress they were not seeking to challenge the laws against homosexuality or criticise the process of law in Morocco, said: “It’s easy to think that it’s culturally close to western culture there but, clearly, if they want to judge you against their legal standards they will. We simply want our father deported. He was a guest, visiting their country, and for a nearly 70-year-old man in poor health the consequences of his imprisonment could be dire.” The British campaigner for gay rights Peter Tatchell said police actions against gay men in Morocco had increased in recent years “coinciding with the rising visibility of LGBT people and the growing success of a pro-Islamist political party”, but until now the victims had always been Moroccan men. “Some people fear that the Moroccan authorities are making an example of Ray in response to concerns about sex tourism and to pander to popular prejudice,” Tatchell said. “It is very unusual for British tourists anywhere in the world to be imprisoned for homosexuality, extremely unusual for any western tourist to be subjected to investigations into their private emails and Facebook page and more unusual still that an arrest was made at a bus stop. Typically such arrests occur at raids on parties or private houses.” A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “We can confirm the detention of a British national in Morocco. We are providing consular assistance.” |