'SOMETHING REALLY BAD HAS HAPPENED'

A Canadian anti-narcotics official facing drug charges in Dubai fears
his fate may be sealed by poor translating, writes Steven Edwards at
the United Nations.

As he faces drug charges in a Dubai jail cell, Canadian anti-narcotics
official Bert Tatham tells what happened the day of his arrest,
providing what amounts to testimony his trial judges may not have
heard as they prepare their verdict tomorrow.

His account comes in a letter to "whom it may concern" that he
compiled behind bars following his April 23 arrest in the tiny Arab
emirate, where the Collingwood, Ont., native is currently in a cell
that contains up to seven others.

It explains in his words why he was carrying two dried poppy flowers
as he returned to Canada from his latest year-long tour in
Afghanistan.

More importantly for the charges against him, it tells how Mr. Tatham
believes Dubai officials could have found a tiny amount of hashish on
him, and how a test of his urine showed traces of narcotics ingestion.

Finally it details the possible misunderstanding he feels occurred
during his interrogation at the Dubai airport.

"I was not confident that those who took down my answers were fluent
English speakers," he writes in a non-critical, but clearly concerned
way. "In fact, despite my protests, I suspect that virtually the
opposite of what I told them was recorded as my statement."

Mr. Tatham, 35, faces at least the typical sentence of four years in
jail if convicted of charges of possession of illicit drugs and
intention to distribute them. The amount of hashish involved is only
0.6 grams, but the emirate is renowned for its no-tolerance policy
regarding drugs offences.

"He fears the worst and thinks he's going to get the four years," his
mother Louise, 60, said yesterday from his parental home in
Collingwood, Ont., after getting off the phone with her son.

His parents' number is among half a dozen that prison rules allow him
to list as people he can call.

Another is Sara Gilmer, his girlfriend of almost two
years.

Mr. Tatham placed a call April 23 that arrived at midnight West Coast
time to tell the woman he plans to marry that their plans for the
future had been abruptly interrupted.

"Something really bad has happened," Ms. Gilmer, 28, recalls Mr.
Tatham saying after she awakened from her sleep at her Victoria, B.C.,
home and picked up the receiver. "I'm in jail in Dubai. They found
something on me."

He was returning from Afghanistan's southern Kandahar region via
Dubai.

"With frequent stories of our soldiers and others dying in Kandahar,
it seemed the minute he left, all the worry was over," Ms. Gilmer, a
substitute elementary school teacher, said. "This was one thing I
never imagined."

Dubai is a common transit hub for travellers between south Asia and
points west, and Mr. Tatham landed there following completion of his
latest anti-narcotics contract in Afghanistan.

It appears he planned to spend a small amount of time sightseeing
before taking a connecting flight, and as he passed through customs,
officials came across the two poppy flowers that Mr. Tatham says were
"carefully wrapped in a silk scarf and ... rug for
protection."

Though their dried state meant they had no utility in drug production,
their presence is presumed to have prompted Dubai officials to conduct
a more thorough search of Mr. Tatham, during which they told him
they'd found hashish.

As for his possession of any hashish, or the presence of drug residue
in his body, he refers to his anti-narcotics work of the past year
stationed in the southern Afghan region of Kandahar alongside, but not
connected to, the bulk of Canada's 2,500 troops in the country.

"Drugs was a major occupational hazard," Mr. Tatham writes. "I handled
hashish and other substances regularly in Afghanistan as part of my
role as a counter-narcotics official.

"You can imagine my surprise when I was searched at the Dubai airport
and was shown a small object said to be hashish found in a front
pocket of my jeans," he says.

"How this would have made it through the laundry, as well as the
previous four or five searches at ... Kabul Airport earlier in the day
is unknown to me."

Western aid workers in Afghanistan say hashish is ubiquitous, and Mr.
Tatham also says it is "sadly a deep part of Afghan culture" in the
region in which he worked.

He illustrates several ways hashish or other drugs could have entered
his system. One was at official burnings of confiscated narcotics.
"The fumes from this were unavoidable," he says.

Another is that people commonly unknowingly ingest it "in food where
it was used in its preparation."

Mr. Tatham says his letter repeats what he told interrogating officers
at the Dubai airport, but fears his answers at that time were
misinterpreted.

"For example, my telling them about being exposed to drugs in my work
. became, 'I used drugs in Afghanistan'," he writes.

"My lack of any knowledge of having hashish ... became, 'I forgot I
put it in my pocket'." He concludes he has the "utmost respect" for
Dubai's laws.

Everything hangs on tomorrow's verdict.

"I'm thinking positively and believing he'll be back next week," said
Ms. Gilmer, adding that if their worst fears come true "and they keep
him there, I've told him we'll be together no matter how long it takes."