DRUG CASE A PUZZLER, BUT IT'S CLEAR HER KIDS ARE SUFFERING

It's either the stupidest move of all time or a person's worst fear
come true.

She's either a drug trafficker or set up as an unsuspecting drug mule.
Depending on what is real, the truth might have similarities to the
famous 1970s movie, Midnight Express.

In that based-on-a-true story film, a man was detained in a Turkish
prison for trying to smuggle out some hashish.

This is Pakistan and heroin -- and real life for Brighton's Deborah
Kerr. It's not a movie -- yet.

It would make a good one, though, since the 36-year-old
mother-of-three has been sitting in the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi,
Pakistan, on trafficking charges for 17 months.

It certainly is a mystery -- and a tragedy since there are young
children back here who are without their mother.

But could the former Sunday school teacher soon be on her way home?
Could the nightmare soon be over? Kerr thinks so.

Her three children, as well as her family in Belleville, are crossing
their fingers that she is correct.

"I'll be acquitted," she said last Friday in her first and only media
interview over a phone line from her prison cell.

Reached by news anchor Bill Holland, of radio station CJBQ, Kerr said
she will be in court Thursday where she expects an acquittal, noting
"witnesses" against her did not show up to testify at a hearing last
week.

It's just another strange twist in an even stranger story which saw
her travel to Pakistan with the father of her two younger children --
Saleem Khan, 67 -- with talk of her marrying his adult son.

What we do know is Kerr was all set to return to Canada last year when
she was arrested at the airport in Islamabad. It seems drug
enforcement officials found her with some carry-on luggage fitted with
6.2 kilograms of heroin.

"It was in a case set beside me," she told Holland, adding she had
already made it through all security checks. "It was not my luggage."

There are all sorts of rumours about her being a drug mule and that
the narcotics were sewn into a jacket inside this case. She says it's
just plain untrue. "I pleaded not guilty," she said, adding the
conditions in her prison are "horrible."

It's a mess and if this woman was not Canadian, and not from this part
of Ontario, we may not care at all. But for me, the real victims in
this are children Chantal, 14, Sara, who will be 5 in July, and Jacob,
4. If she is innocent, or was set up, it doesn't seem fair to them.

'Vindictive' Family

The children have been in the care of family back home -- including
her sister Sheri Gonyea, who says kin are "confused" about where this
case is at and where it is going. To add to an already dramatic
tragedy, Kerr seemed to be lashing out when she told Holland
"everything my family is doing is vindictive."

Gonyea promises this is not the case and says the children are at the
forefront of their concerns and the "best case scenario" would be for
her sister to get home, get necessary help and get on with life.

"We are all puzzled with what the truth is," Gonyea
said.

For Liberal MP Dan McTeague, that pretty well sums up his concerns.
There is no due process and proper forum to get to that. Same goes for
how justice is rendered in some foreign lands.

For example, what Kerr told the Belleville radio station was news to
him. "We have heard nothing about this from official sources," he said.

He and Conservative MP Rick Norlock have been working on this case for
months.

"We need a process," says McTeague. "The bottom line is we need our
consular officials to be kept up on any developments."

With this case, and so many others, information seems to be on a
need-to-know or hit-or-miss basis.

It's going to be very interesting to see if Kerr actually does get
acquitted on Thursday. Those of us who have spent time trying to get
people out of foreign prisons are a tad skeptical this could come
about so easily.

As she waits, Kerr had a message for her children: "Tell them I miss
them."