THE PRISON STORY

In my post LABBEVILLE I mentioned that I had been in prison in Morocco and some have asked for the story. Here it is – with no pictures this time.

I was living in Marrakesh and traveled up to Meknès to buy kif. I couldn’t find my contact from when I lived in Sidi Ali two years earlier, but I found another guy who seemed OK. It turned out he was not. When I got my packet next day it contained less I had been promised and I let him know that I was not satisfied. I am sure he alerted the police, maybe as revenge, for he knew that I was leaving the next morning and when I arrived at the bus station two soldiers zoomed in on me right away and wanted to check my bag. I was taken to the police station and left alone with a cop in the reception. He opened my packet, took out some of the kif and put it in his drawer while he winked at me.
A couple of days later, while I was still in the detention at police headquarters, I was delivered to the secret police. They took me on a ride where I had to sit with the head down so I couldn’t see where we were going. We stopped by a small square villa with newspaper glued over all windows and I was lead into a room with a huge table that must have been built inside the room; it was so big that it left just enough space to get around it and to have chairs on two sides. The whole room was gray and there was nothing but the table, the chairs and a little nasty fellow looking exactly like Göebbles, Hitler’s propaganda minister. He placed a brown dossier on the table and said: “We know you are a spy. Now tell us: what is your mission in Morocco?”
“I am not a spy!”
“We know you are a spy. What is your mission in Morocco?
“I am not a spy!!”
He patted the dossier: “We know you are a spy. And you will tell us what your mission is. Nobody knows you are here; nobody cares what happen to you.”
Now they took me outside and down a staircase to a cemented cellar inhabited by a freaky monster of a guy holding an electric device with wires dangling. Göebbles asked again about my mission and in my desperation one possible savior stood out in my mind, an acquaintance in Marrakesh whom I suspected of being in the secret police. I said: “Ask Mr. Kissioui in Marrakesh; he knows I am not a spy.” For the first time my words seemed to make an impression. Göebbles disappeared and left me with the brute. I was scared they would kill me and I prayed from the depth of my heart: “Make me strong. I am not afraid of death, but give me strength to bear the pain.”
About fifteen minutes passed. It was not Göebbles that came down the stairs, but a jovial, rotund Moroccan in his early thirties. He took me from the cellar and brought me back to his pleasant office at police headquarters. He asked me quite personal questions and seemed to understand what I was doing. Through him some mysterious happenings in Sidi Ali were explained. There were two warring groups in Sidi Ali, and enemies of those who had taken me in had tried to prevent my move to their village. When they had not succeeded, they had denounced me as a spy to the secret police whose suspicions had then been aroused when I returned after two years.
His last question to me was: would I become a spy - would I contact the newcomers in Marrakesh and find out if they had political aims? I would be free to go this moment and be paid and have as much of the best kif as I wanted to smoke.
I told him I could not do this, and he seemed to understand that too, but it spelt the end of his interest in me. I was shipped back to the detention.
The detention was a room, maybe 12x15 feet, with a door in the corner with an 8x8 inch window. The bathroom facilities were a faucet and a hole in the floor. Here I passed ten days with a dozen others and a thousand lice. The place by the window was cherished because only there was it light enough to hunt for and exterminate the lice that hid in the seams of the clothing. We slept on the cement floor and had one stale bread each daily and plenty of water from the faucet.
The prison was more comfortable. We were three in a one-man cell, and, besides the bread, we had watery cabbage soup and, in the morning, some murky, tepid water that was called coffee. One cellmate, whose crime was drinking wine, received food from his family a couple of days a week and he shared with us. Moroccan home cooking is the best! It was tantalizing because there was never enough between the three of us and the cabbage soup lost any appeal hunger could have given it.
We were let out in a courtyard every day. Here I heard many sad stories. For example: Mohamed had been caught stealing an orange in the king’s garden that is open to the public. He had now passed two years in prison without seeing a lawyer or a judge.
I was treated better that the Moroccans i. e. I was not beaten. Their favorite interrogation technique was beating the soles of the feet and one time they amused themselves with letting me witness the procedure. The nasty thing is that afterwards, when you are forced to walk, it repeats the torture.
A month passed before anything happened in my case. Then I was taken to court and sentenced. For the kif: three months suspended; for the homegrown tobacco that is traditionally sold with the kif and is illegal because it bypasses the Tobacco Monopoly: four months or $1000. That was a lot of money in 1967, more like $10.000 today and impossible for me to pay. I had been told many times that, oh, they’ll let you go, it’s nothing, so I was quite downcast after the sentencing, but two days after somebody arrived from the Danish embassy ready to help me. I asked him to go to the Tobacco Monopoly and ask for a reduction in the fine and he came back with good news. They had reduced the fine to $100. After contacting my family who vouched for my payment, the embassy paid the fine and I was free. FREE!