Former inmate tells of Cassie Sainsbury’s special treatment inside Bogota prison
A FORMER inmate at the Colombian jail where Cassie Sainsbury is being held has revealed how the Aussie secured the best jail experience.
MEAL time for most of El Buen Pastor prison’s 1900 inmates happens at a run, literally.
Three times a day, scores of women sprint carrying a plastic bowl to line up in groups in a partially shaded concrete patio to wait to access the facility’s common kitchen area known as the “rancho”.
Those too old or too slow often miss out, according to longtime inmate Marisol Arias Perez.
“It’s not like for the foreigners though, they get special treatment all the time,” Ms Perez shrugged as she spoke outside the prison’s doors last week. “For them, this place is like heaven.”
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As one of about 20 residents of Patio Seven, former South Australian gym owner and sex worker Cassie Sainsbury enjoys more access to food, daily necessities and even family visits than the vast majority of other residents of Colombia’s biggest women’s jail.
Ms Perez described a hardscrabble existence during her time inside.
“Everything is hard. You have to fight to get even sanitary items. The food (including meals of beef and rice and chicken and salad) awful, there is never enough,” said Ms Perez, who was visiting on Wednesday to deliver some medical items to friends who remain inside, a month after her own release.
“For most of us it is cold and crowded. It is a hard life,” she said.
But in Patio Seven, where Sainsbury was moved about a month after her April 12 arrest with 5.9kg of drugs, the days are far more leisurely.
Known as the “extradition patio” it is mainly populated by foreign prisoners on drugs charges and those deemed to need extra security.
Sainsbury was moved there after a run-in with another prisoner in Patio Five who sold a photo of her to an Australian television network.
“The Australian made a big fuss and so she was moved. It is something that everyone knows,” said Ms Perez.
Food comes via a weekly grocery delivery, which the inmates prepare themselves. They have a microwave, washing machine and fridge and freezer.
Some enjoy single cells, most of which have televisions.
Sainsbury is also allowed to see her family outside of the official weekend visiting hours, and her mother Lisa Evans, who has been in Bogota courtesy of 60 Minutes since last month, spent Monday with her daughter.
Originally published as Former inmate tells of Cassie Sainsbury’s special treatment inside Bogota prison
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