TATHAM HOPED FOR LENIENCY ON DRUGS

Dubai Releases Man

NEW YORK - In his first interview since his release from a Dubai jail,
anti-narcotics official Bert Tatham says the Arab emirate should have
given him a break instead of prosecuting him for drugs possession. He
also shed light on his treatment in jail, saying he gave testimony in
a "human rights" matter. The reference was to an August incident in
which Dubai officials severely injured at least one inmate, and
roughed up others to varying degrees -- among them Mr. Tatham.

"There were times when I was treated quite poorly, and other times
when I was treated with enough indifference to make it bearable," he
said by phone from London as he awaited a connection for Canada yesterday.

"It was my negligence that got me there, but if you look at the
context of my work and what preceded my [arrest], you would think that
logic and compassion would prevail, and that they would let me go on
my way."

Mr. Tatham, 36, had spent 13 months in anti-narcotics work in southern
Afghanistan when he arrived in Dubai on a return trip to Canada on
April 23. He was charged with drug possession as he passed through
customs.

Not only did he knowingly have two poppy pods in a suitcase, but Dubai
officials said they found 0.06 grams of hashish in a pocket of jeans
he was wearing.

Mr. Tatham said the Dubai government "wasn't ready to put things in
context," and a court sentenced him in June to four years
imprisonment.

"The bottom line is I am in a war zone in a narco-state advising the
government on how to set up a ministry of counter-narcotics," Mr.
Tatham said as he addressed the hashish find.

"It was an occupational hazard of mine to be exposed to these
substances from time to time. I should have been more careful coming
out of there and just making sure that any residue from handling it
had been cleared out of myself."

His lawyers argued at his trial that he had intended to use the poppy
pods as props for lectures when he returned to Canada.

"The poppy flowers [were] purely as an exhibit to show people," he
said.

"They were very old and they had been used as an exhibit at the UN. I
sort of scrounged [the pods] from them and I was told they would be
completely permissible in Canada."

His parents were yesterday travelling to Toronto to meet their son, as
was his 28-year-old fiancee, Sara Gilmer, a Victoria, B.C. teacher.

"I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with them," he said.