ALONE AND ACCUSED IN A NICARAGUAN PRISON

Guelph Man In Hemp Case Talks Of Jail Ordeal

MANAGUA - In the visitor room at the La Modelo prison, there are four
Boston rocking chairs placed around a coffee table. A small ice box
hums in the corner. Ashtrays have been provided.

It is all quite civilized.

When the prisoner enters the room, the warden rises to shake his hand.
``You have visitors,'' he says, to the accused narcotics felon.
``They've come all the way from Canada. Would you like to speak to
them?''

The prisoner nods his head enthusiastically and the warden takes his
leave.

Paul Thomas Wylie, the 45-year-old horticulturalist from Guelph,
lowers himself carefully into a chair and rocks gently.

He does not appear unduly discomforted, after almost three weeks in
jail, most of that time spent in solitary confinement at another
holding facility.

His beard is a little bit ungroomed but he's not otherwise the worse
for wear.

At least not for a man who's been shot at, thrown into jail,
repeatedly robbed by his fellow inmates, denied all reading material,
forbidden to use the phone or write to his family, kept isolated from
his non-English-speaking lawyer, forced to use a latrine that is no
more than a hole in the floor of his three by four metre cell, taken
to his single court appearance wearing only his underwear, and
threatened with a 30-year prison sentence.

``I'm in a foreign country, locked away incommunicado, and surrounded
by dangerous people,'' says Wylie, as his Boston rocker tips back and
forth. ``And I've done absolutely nothing wrong.''

This is a familiar mantra for incarcerated individuals. But Wylie is,
at the moment, the most infamous accused felon in the entire Nicaragua
prison system. He's also the only Canadian in the entire Nicaraguan
prison system.

On Dec. 23, as he sat in the back seat in a cab headed down a dusty
local road some 25 kilometres east of Managua, Wylie saw a Toyota
suddenly veer into the taxi's path. When the cab driver attempted to
reverse, the taxi was surrounded by a group of men on motorcycles.
Because Wylie had the staff payroll on his lap, he assumed this was a
robbery.

``That's what the cab driver thought too,'' he told The Star
yesterday. ``These guys had all pulled out their guns and they were
pointing them at us.''

The cab driver tried again to make an escape. ``That's when they
started shooting at us. They blew out two tires. Man, it was a bad
scene.''

The armed assailants had no interest in the cab driver. They let him
go. But they shoved Wylie into the Toyota and sped off towards
Managua, where he was deposited into a small cell in the local
lock-up, with an overhead lightbulb that burned constantly. ``It was
only then that I realized these guys were the police,'' says Wylie.

Twenty-four hours later, Wylie was taken to court, clad just in his
underwear, and formally charged with growing marijuana - 57 hectares
of the stuff.

It was the largest marijuana bust in Nicaraguan history.

Down a weed-infested country road, across a baked-dry creek bed where
volcanic rock protrudes, and over the hump of a hill.

A sweet-faced policeman, AK-47 slung about his neck, throws up his arm
in a halt motion.

No entry here, the officer says, positioning himself against a
barbed-wire gate that leads into a parcel of property that has been
entirely burned out, charred to the roots and tilled over. Bits of
crop are still smouldering in the distance and, when the stiff breeze
changes direction, a familiar sweet smell assaults the nostrils.

If one inhaled deeply, on the spot, one might get a fairly nice
buzz.

Police think this is where Wylie and his cohorts - six other Canadians
and a notorious Nicaraguan who has been identified as a former drug
trafficker and member of the Nicaragua Contra rebel movement - had set
up shop for themselves in a wildly ambitious pot-growing scheme.

Wylie, the only one of the seven accused who was actually seized and
arrested (the six others were conveniently out of the country), says:
Lies, all lies.

According to Wylie, and other stakeholders in Hemp-Agro International,
this plantation was a fully-licensed, fully-certified enterprise,
operating with the knowledge and permission of the Nicaraguan
government, in the production of hemp for strictly
commercial/industrial purposes - primarily hemp oil for use in the
manufacture of cosmetics.

It has already been admitted, by the American embassy in Managua, that
members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency were involved - at
Nicaragua's request - in inspecting the property and the crop.

``From what I understand, the police had been watching the place for a
number of months,'' says John Adams, the Canadian consul in Managua,
who has visited Wylie three times since his arrest.

``We have no knowledge about this (plantation). We didn't know it was
there. Wylie had never registered with the consul here, although I
believe he did drop by on one occasion. Personally, I don't know how
extensively the Americans were involved (in the raid). There have been
a lot of rumours.''

Adams stresses that the Canadian consulate has no role in what happens
next, other than to see that Wylie is not mistreated. The consul has
been trying, for example, to have Wylie moved to another, less
oppressive and restrictive area of the Modelo prison.

Adams, who's been at the Nicaraguan consulate only since last August,
made a further observation: ``Here, you're guilty until you can prove
your innocence. That's the way the law works. And this has been front
page news ever since the raid occurred.''

Hence, there is no bail procedure available for Wylie. The presiding
judge can take as long as she wants, as investigators go about their
business. But it can be months before the investigation is done.

``He may be here . . . for a while,'' says Adams.

``What Wylie has been telling us since the beginning is that this is
not marijuana. He's adamant about that.''

Paul Wylie has a way of talking. Hippy style. Laid back, way back. He
admits he is a child of the '60s, love beads and all, who smoked pot
back in the groovy days, the Janis Joplin days, but that was a long
time ago.

``In those days, we were out to change the world. It was a revolution,
man.''

He admits to one conviction for possession of marijuana, but says he
otherwise devoted himself to becoming a scientist.

It was the hemp plant, says Wylie, that turned him on - as a
scientist. ``This is a remarkable plant. It's so overwhelming. You
just can't ignore it.'' He moved to Nicaragua 14 months ago to work
for his nephew Grant Sander, president of Hemp-Agro.

The soil in Nicaragua is perfect for hemp growing because of the
volcanic ash.

``I realized we would be able to get two cycles of growth per
year.

``We had 25 local people working for us. The plantation was never a
secret.

``The government knew we were here - they're the ones who had given us
all the proper certificates.''

Wylie shares a cell with a drug trafficker who ``at least speaks
English.''

But otherwise he complains that the existence is hideous.

``It's archaic. They steal my food. They steal my clothes. I'm
surrounded by murderers, the worst people you can imagine. Very bad
people.''

Yet outwardly, Wylie doesn't seem all that distressed. He appears, in
fact, to be altogether mellow. Kind of like a marijuana mellow.

``The Nicaraguans have this expression: Be tranquilo. That's how I'm
trying to be. Tranquilo.''