60 Minutes: Tara Brown and crew trapped in dark, dank hellhole in Lebanon
LIFE behind bars for Tara Brown and her 60 Minutes colleagues in Beirut’s Baabda Prison is in stark contrast to what she is accustomed to. If convicted Brown faces up to 20 years in a 20sq m cell.
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DANK, dark and isolating. Life behind bars for Tara Brown and her 60 Minutes colleagues in Beirut’s Baabda Prison is in stark contrast to what she is accustomed to.
If convicted of kidnapping, the award-winning journalist faces up to 20 years in a 20sq m cell, crammed in with 19 other inmates — some convicted of murdering their husbands, some of robbery, others of trafficking drugs.
Sunlight is scarce, the walls are damp, and it is cold and unfriendly.
Many of the prisoners are forced to eat cockroach-infested food and drink tainted water. The alternative is starvation and dehydration. Food can be bought, but at a hefty price.
The dilapidated prison, 11km outside the Lebanese capital, houses about
70 prisoners.
It was designed to contain half that number and the overpopulation means that, at times, three women are huddled on a single mattress, desperate to avoid the dirty, cold floor.
Former inmate and convicted heroin user
Joelle Giappesi wrote of a shocking lack of dignity in her memoir Les Murs Ne Font Pas Le Prison (The Walls Don’t Make The Jail).
Giappesi wrote that showering is done in front of cellmates and there are no doors on the toilet.
The smell is sickening.
Promiscuity, betrayal, corruption and blackmail are rife, she wrote.
For English-speaking inmates who do not understand Arabic, the prison is a terrifying and lonely domain — far from the safety of their homes back in Sydney.
Speaking exclusively from behind a barred and heavily meshed holding cell in the bowels of the court complex, Ms Brown said she was hopeful of some resolution.
She said she didn’t want to say too much so as to not jeopardise her case but she was well and getting daily visits from friends.
“Quite genuinely we are being treated well by the standards here, it’s fine, it’s not crowded,” she told News Corp Australia of her incarceration conditions.
The case has been adjourned until Monday with all to remain in detention. No imminent decision has been made with Judge Abdullah declaring that further investigation is required.
She said she now had a local lawyer but was not sure what the process was or what steps were to be taken next.
“It really is quite hard to gauge at the moment what is happening so we are going through a process, we’ll see,” she said.
She has to wear handcuffs every time she is out of the cell or being moved between rooms in court. Sometimes she is manacled alone other times to others arrested with her.
Prison guards said she and her news crew were getting what they needed, including very regular visits from Australian embassy staff.
He said Ms Brown was in a cell with six others which was “very good”.
Normally he said one could expect very crowded conditions particularly with the current crackdown on prostitution in the capital and the regular arrests of foreign workers working without visas from sub Sahara or Sri Lanka. The Australian men were a little more cramped
but guards declined to comment on conditions.
Ms Brown and the nine others including senior producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson sound recordist David Ballment and Ms Faulkner, are facing charges of kidnapping, harm and disrespect for authorities which can carry anything from three years to life in jail.
They have been imprisoned since the failed attempt to snatch her kids three and a half year old Noah and five and a half year old Lahela off a main street in Beirut as they waited for their school bus with a nanny and grandmother who was pushed to the ground and hit on the head during the scuffle.
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