CANADIAN RELEASED FROM DUBAI JAIL

Anti-Narcotics Officer Angered by Extended Detainment

NEW YORK - Bert Tatham, the anti-narcotics officer sentenced in June
to four years imprisonment in Dubai for drugs possession, arrives home
today with mixed feelings of joy and anger, his parents say.

Louise and Charlie Tatham got confirmation at 5.38 a.m. yesterday that
their son, 36, would be among 377 prisoners Dubai ruler Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was releasing as part of an amnesty
marking the Islamic Eid holiday.

But both Mr. Tatham and his parents are concerned he's spent more time
than any other Canadian in a Dubai jail on similar charges.

"He told me that when he walks out the door, it will be like someone
lifting a boot they've had pressed down on his neck," Louise Tatham
said from the family home near Collingwood, Ont.

"But he's also coming home with a lot of pent up anger and resentment
- -- some at the way he was treated in jail, but some at our government,
too."

Though Canadian officials told the family no Canadian had spent more
than seven months in a United Arab Emirates jail on similar charges,
Mr. Tatham was behind bars almost eight months after being arrested
April 23.

He had decided to stop off in Dubai to sightsee while returning from
Afghanistan, where he had spent 13 months for the Afghan government's
Poppy Elimination Program in the southern province of Kandahar
managing an Afghan team in such projects as helping farmers find
alternative crops.

But he was detained when customs officials said they found poppy pods
in his suitcase and a tiny amount of hashish in his jeans' pocket. He
said he had the pods for lecture props, while his lawyers argued the
hashish was related to his eradication work.

"I think he feels the Canadian government could have done more," his
mother said.

As the government urged Mr. Tatham's parents to resist going public
about efforts to gain their son's release, senior officials involved
in making representations included Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier,
Foreign Affairs Secretary of State Helena Guergis and International
Trade Minister David Emerson.

Canadian officials in the region as well as Foreign Affairs
bureaucrats in Ottawa were also extensively involved.

"At the end of the day, not all diplomacy takes place in the public
eye and much of what we did to advance Mr. Tatham's case was discreet,
and we feel ,effective," said one senior official in Ottawa.

Mr. Bernier and Mr. Emerson raised the issue with officials during
visits to UAE while Ms. Guergis, who is also the family's local MP,
was prepared to go to the region, officials said.

The strongest wording to date saw Canadian officials tell their UAE
counterparts Canada considered the lack of resolution to be a
"significant irritant" between the two countries.

It's not clear how much the government was reacting to pressure from
the family, which ran an extensive campaign that included appeals
through connections Mr. Tatham's father has built as owner of a
successful engineering consultancy.

In a strange twist, the British mother of Mr. Tatham's fiancee, Sara
Gilmer, 28, even used her family's horse-racing connections to appeal
directly to the younger of the Dubai's ruler's two wives. Princess
Haya Bint Al Hussein accompanies her husband on his frequent race-meet
visits in Britain.

Ms. Gilmer said she would today fly to Toronto to join Mr. Tatham's
parents at Pearson International Airport to meet him. Though he lives
in Vancouver, they will spend Christmas with his parents.

"Now I have to get him a Christmas present," she quipped. "I'm getting
ready to hear all about it, but we're all so glad it is over."