VANCOUVER MAN STILL IN MEXICAN PRISON AS MOST CHARGES DISMISSED

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. - A North Vancouver man who has been
languishing in a Mexican prison for more than two years without trial
has had the bulk of his charges dismissed, but is still facing
several more months behind bars.

Pavel Kulisek was charged with drug trafficking and participating in
organized crime. The drug charges have been dismissed but the
dismissal must now be reviewed by another Mexican panel. The
organized crime charges will not proceed until that review is
completed, a process that is supposed to take three months but may
take up to a year.

Ramona Penner, Kulisek's doctor and family friend, visited him in early April.

"He was a bit on the skinny side," she said. "He hadn't seen the sun
much at all. He was animated and talkative but obviously suffering."

Kulisek, his wife and two young children moved to Mexico in November
2007. He was arrested in March 2008 while he shared a meal with a man
he believed to be an American expatriate named Carlos Herrera. The
two had struck up a friendship after competing in several motorcycle
races in Mexico.

"Herrera" turned out to be Gustavo Rivera Martinez, a major figure in
the Tijuana drug trade. Kulisek and his supporters insist he was not
involved in any crime and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Since then, Kulisek has spent 22 hours of each day sharing a
2.5-metre-by-four-metre cell with another prisoner.

He has no television or other diversion except for a Bible and a
Spanish dictionary and is allowed just three hours each week to paint
or play dominoes. Mexican authorities have rebuffed attempts by the
Canadian consulate to provide Kulisek with a television.

"I know I couldn't do it. I think you'd go absolutely nuts," Penner
said. "He needs something to do."

The process Penner went through to visit her friend illustrates how
laboriously the Mexican legal system works, she said.

To arrange the visit, she sent in a written application accompanied
by three letters of reference and a criminal record check, all of
which had to be notarized and translated. This was mailed to Kulisek
in prison, who presented it to his caseworker. Her first application
was denied.

Prison officials eventually relented under pressure from the Canadian
consulate. Penner was not allowed to wear layered clothing, sheer
clothing or white pants, but wasn't told so. As a result, she had to
get special permission to enter the prison in non-regulation attire.
She was interviewed twice, went through eight security checkpoints,
an electronic scan, a strip search and a medical examination before
being allowed to see Kulisek for exactly one hour.

"I feel this has gone on long enough waiting for the Mexican system
to do its thing," said Penner. "The second committee could do the
review within a week. It doesn't have to sit for three months."