Nick Hopkins Crime Correspondent. The Guardian, UK. Friday February 18, 2000
What happened to Rachel McGee can be told in her own words, pieced together from letters sent home. She wrote often of her "foolishness and stupidity", she regretted taking the love of her friends and family for granted.
The apologies were not, she insisted, admissions of guilt. They were the reflections of a bewildered young woman with time on her hands who accepted her life had gone horribly wrong. "This is a living nightmare," she said.
Not very long ago she drove a Saab convertible and lived in a nice flat in fashionable north-west London. Today she is in the Occidente women's prison near Havana, Cuba, serving a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking. British diplomats believe there was "little or no evidence against her".
Yesterday the foreign office was wary of saying anything to irritate the Cuban authorities while an appeal was pending, but the campaign and advice group Fair Trials Abroad was not so taciturn. "It looks like there has been an awful mistake," said its founder, Stephen Jakobi.
Maureen McGee, meanwhile, was trying to buoy her daughter's spirits and temper her own exasperation at a chain of events that seemed beyond their control.
Ms McGee's "mistake", if her story is to be believed, was a very familiar one in drugs cases - the offer of a cheap holiday. In October 1998 she was invited by her new boyfriend Karite Clacher, known as Remy, to join him on a three-week trip to Cuba. He offered her the £1,000
ticket for £200, saying it had been bought for his wife before they separated.
Ms McGee, who had only been abroad once, seized the opportunity. "I believe they had only known each other for a few weeks, but Rachel can be wide-eyed and easily led," said Mrs McGee, 48, who lives in east London. Her daughter had reservations. "For some reason, I didn't want to
get on that plane at Gatwick," she said in one letter. "Now I know why. I never imagined in my wildest dreams something like this could happen, but it has. I wish I knew why."
She said most of the holiday was uneventful. The pair stayed in a rented apartment near the beach and mixed with two other Britons, Desmond Junior Gordon and Michelle Malcolm, friends of her boyfriend who had flown to Cuba shortly before them. The local police, however, were about to spring a
trap that would change all of their lives. Following a tip-off, detectives were waiting at the Jose Marti airport in Havana for four men flying from Kingston, Jamaica, who were suspected drug smugglers.
Rendezvous
Jerome Blackwood, Nicanor Castro, Wayne Sharpe and Patrick Reid were arrested on November 16 shortly after collecting their suitcases. Hidden inside police found 15 kilos of cocaine, worth £9m on the street. The police did not charge the four because they wanted to root out their contacts
on the island. Under surveillance, they were allowed to make phone calls and set up a meeting.
The court papers alleged the Jamaicans contacted Mr Gordon and that they agreed an 11am rendezvous in Havana's Hotel Libre, formerly the Hilton, three days later. Ms McGee's name was not mentioned in any of the conversations.
"She went to the bar with Remy," said her mother. "He'd told her they were meeting the other British couple. She didn't think anything of it. I think she was quite surprised to see other people there, but she wasn't suspicious."
Half an hour later Ms McGee decided to leave the group to meet two local women she had befriended earlier on the holiday. As her taxi pulled away from the hotel she saw dozens of police officers run towards the cafe and wrestle Remy and the others to the ground.
If the car had driven on she might have escaped prosecution. However, she got out and ran back. She was arrested, strip-searched and charged.
The raid was a coup for the police. Detectives discovered that the four Jamaicans knew one of the British men, and that they had cracked a drug smuggling ring with links to the US and Canada.
Although there was no direct evidence against Ms McGee, the police concluded there was a conspiracy that "suggested that all the participants knew about the drug trafficking" and that some of the cocaine was destined for Britain.
During police interviews Ms McGee denied any involvement. The Jamaicans said they had never heard of her. She pleaded not guilty, but was not given a separate trial or separate legal representation.
She was the only one of the accused who wanted to give evidence, but her state-appointed lawyer said there was no need because the police had nothing to implicate her.
In another letter Ms McGee wrote: "They are holding me here for drug trafficking, but that is rubbish. I don't know what proof they have. There can't be any. I'm guilty of being stupid, that's all."
Following a hearing on September 23 last year, the judges in the tribunal provincial popular convicted the group. Three months later Ms McGee and Michelle Malcolm, who had also pleaded not guilty, were sentenced to 15 years. The others, including the Jamaicans, received 20 years. Mr Jakobi
believes Ms McGee was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
"This seems very clearly to be a case of guilt by association. One lawyer acted for her and three other defendants. They stood in the dock together. There was clearly a conflict of interests.
"Rachel wanted to give evidence, but she could not. Testimony is always powerful evidence, and there should have been a presumption of innocence by the court. When the appeal comes, she must have her own lawyer."
Innocent
Sources at the foreign office and the embassy in Cuba believe that the court's "one in, all in" approach gave Ms McGee little chance. "There seems to be little or no evidence against her. She decided to go to Cuba at the last minute. She was in a taxi going the other way when the
others were arrested."
Mrs McGee cannot afford the legal fees, but a businessman friend of the family, Farrell McHugh, has offered to help.
"I am anti-drugs and I am anti-drink," said Mr McHugh. "If I thought for a moment Rachel was involved in some kind of scam, I would say she deserves her time in jail. But I believe with all my heart she is innocent."
Embassy staff who have visited Ms McGee said she was trying to stay cheerful. "I'm getting used to the rats and lizards," she wrote recently.
"It was horrible at first but leave them and they leave you - cockroaches, big ugly ones, come up from the toilet [the hole in the floor]. I could live in a jungle after this. I've been having horrible nightmares since I came here."
With each letter, though, her spirit seemed to fade. "God knows, I really thought I was going to make it in the world. Stupid, I know, but I did. I want to come home. Why should I suffer when I have done nothing wrong?"
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