FREED DAD TOO FULL OF JOY TO SLEEP

Pavel Kulisek feels like he was born again. The 45-year-old North
Vancouver father spent more than three years in Mexican prison without
a trial, on drug charges of which he says he's completely innocent.

He was released last week, following an intense legal fight, led by
the forceful advocacy of his wife, Jirina Kuliskova, and pressure from
Canadian officials.

In an interview Friday, Kulisek said he hadn't slept for three days,
as he tried to absorb the joy of his freedom - and watching his
daughters Isabella and Annie 24 hours a day.

"I just look at them sleeping, smell them again, then I go walk around
the block," Kulisek said.

"It's like being in heaven." After moving his young family to Mexico,
Kulisek was arrested in a March 2008 police raid while at a restaurant
with a new friend, who happened to be Tijuana drug cartel kingpin
Gustavo Rivera Martinez, called the "Al Capone" of Mexico by some.

Kulisek and Kuliskova have always maintained that the two men met
through desert motorbike racing - and Kulisek knew the man by his
alias, Carlos Herrera - never learning the kingpin's true identity
until it was too late.

The drug - trafficking and organized-crime charges against Kulisek
didn't hold up, with charges contaminated by allegations of corrupt
accusers.

But still, Kulisek was kept in prison year after year, with a
nightmarish set of legal hurdles, in Mexico's notoriously slow justice
system.

Then, last week, a Mexican judge ordered that he be set free for lack
of evidence.

"Since they released me Tuesday I didn't sleep, I was . . . it's just
a shock," Kulisek said. "I feel like I'm born again."

It's a remarkable change, considering Kulisek had given up hope and
had tried to kill himself in his cell this spring, according to
Kuliskova.

"When you get to the point of taking your life because you can't
control yourself, because you're under so much stress . . . I really
believe God saved me," Kulisek said.

"It was just terrible," he said, of prison life.

"You are in a cell like an animal. Terrible dreams.

"Your kids are in a different place. I got a letter from Isabella, and
I still have it. She wrote me, 'Daddy I love you so much, when are you
coming home? We are sending you a kiss every night. Do you feel a
little tickle on your cheek?'"

Talking about the letter, Kulisek started to cry softly as he held
Isabella and Annie in the North Vancouver garage in which the family
lives. They rented out their home to pay for legal bills.

"I was standing at the cell bars [with the letter] and I just slid
down and cried, and cried, like a little boy," he recalled.

Meanwhile, well-wishers kept dropping in and calling on the phone to
celebrate his return.

"It's great it's over," said a beaming and relieved Kuliskova.

"Now we just have to focus on getting our lives back together and
Pavel getting to know the girls again."

Asked what he wants to do now, Kulisek said: "I just want to help
people, so something like this won't happen to them.

"I just want to thank Canada very much. I want to thank everyone who
believed in my innocence."