FREE FATHER FROM MEXICAN PRISON: FAMILY

Appeals To Ottawa; Canadian Charged With Drug Trafficking

The family of a Canadian businessman detained in Mexico is pleading
with the federal government to intervene on his behalf and bring him
home.

Pavel Kulisek, 43, was arrested on March 11 in Los Barilles and held
in a detention centre in Mexico City. He was officially charged on
June 16 with drug trafficking, promoting drug trafficking and
promoting organized crime and has since been languishing in a maximum
security prison in Guadalajara.

His lawyers and family say the charges are unfounded, and the North
Vancouver man has instead been imprisoned because he "happened to be
at the wrong place, at the wrong time."

Mr. Kulisek, his wife and their two daughters, aged 4 and 6, had been
living in Los Barilles on Mexico's Baja Peninsula since October, 2007.
They enrolled their eldest daughter in a private Montessori preschool
and Mr. Kulisek had received his real estate licence.

He took up motorbike racing, and it was at a local bike race he met
someone he thought was a new friend. The friend, who called himself
Carlos Harrera, is actually Gustavo Rivera Martinez -- one of the U.
S. Marshals Service and FBI's most wanted men and kingpin of the
Tijuana cartel, which was made famous in the movie Traffic

When police swooped in on him having dinner in March, Mr. Kulisek was
there and was also arrested.

"I was shocked, because I had no idea that Carlos was involved in such
activities," said Mr. Kulisek's wife, Jirina Kuliskova, in an
interview with the North Shore News from her North Vancouver home,
where she and her children returned for safety after her husband's
arrest. "So, he just fooled us, I guess. Totally fooled us."

She said Mr. Martinez, who was going by his alias when the family met
him, was a "well-liked" and "well-respected man in the community" with
a wife and four children.

"We knew this guy [Martinez] under a totally different identity. We
hadn't had the slightest of suspicion of him being involved in such a
thing," said Ms. Kuliskova. "Nobody in the community had any ideas as
to what he was up to."

Mr. Kulisek and his wife moved to Canada from the Czech Republic 18
years ago and became Canadian citizens in 1994. They settled in North
Vancouver. He worked with a business partner in the construction
industry remodelling and renovating homes for 10 years before moving
to Mexico.

"There are no criminal ties whatsoever anywhere in the world," Ms.
Kuliskova said, referring to her husband. "Not in Czech. Not in
Canada. And not in Mexico."

But she knows it is hard to fight the Mexican justice system. The
family hired lawyer Guillermo Cruz Rico, who two months ago defended
another Canadian, Brenda Martin, held in the same prison on fraud charges.

Upon advice from her lawyers, the family only decided to contact
Canadian media organizations this month, four months after Mr.
Kulisek's arrest.

"I was afraid to go public, just because I didn't want to upset
anybody in Mexico," she said of the delay. "But I realized that I
can't do it by myself [without the media's attention]. It's just
impossible."

She added that she is in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the Canadian Consulate in Guadalajara and North Vancouver MP Don Bell,
but reaching her husband has been a struggle. He has been given weekly
12-minute telephone privileges to Canada.

Ms. Kuliskova said Mr. Cruz Rico predicts it may take upwards of a
year before the case goes to trial, and a number of preliminary
hearings are scheduled to be held in the coming months starting Aug.
5.

"I can tell you he's not guilty. It's horrible. I know that they
have to go through the whole process. I have to live with it and there
is no other choice."