A holiday that ended behind bars

Dubliner Stephen Nolan went to Prague for a camping holiday last summer. Instead, he was detained until Christmas in the city's Pankrac prison, where the country's president, Vaclav Havel had been held during the early 1980s, under communist rule.

Despite the burgeoning westernisation of the Czech Republic, and its keenness to join the EU, aspects of Stephen's experience seem more reminiscent of the labyrinthine bureaucracy of Kafka's The Castle than the spirit of the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Stephen's alleged offence was the breaking of a pub window in the city centre, which he denied. But after almost five months in custody he was convicted, fined and faced life deportation. His time in prison cost him more than £15,000 in lost wages, and family travel expenses, and during his detention he dropped in weight from more than 10 stone to eight-and-a-half stone.

He says he was three weeks in custody before he met his court-appointed lawyer and he believes that bureaucracy and poor translation delayed his trial and clouded his case.

He felt the prison conditions and the way he was treated were unacceptable: at times he was held in a damp, cramped cell. He believes the food was prepared in unhygienic conditions and he says that during part of his detention he was without adequate water to drink and wash with. He also feels he was discriminated against because he came from the West.

"Over there there's no light at the end of the tunnel; they make it that way for you; it's a case of you think there's no end. I was a few times near enough suicide," says Stephen. At one point he was in a basement cell which he says was "water-ridden and dark, and I heard people got shadows on their lungs there".

"The cell had a round concrete roof with a tiny window with 10 sets of bars in it. I didn't know where it was, who I was, what time it was, what day, what date it was.

"A few times I just sat there kicking the door, kicking the wall and there was just no hope. Then the Irish Embassy and my girlfriend got visiting rights and all of a sudden there was a boost of hope," he says.

Stephen's ordeal began when he and his girlfriend, Veronique Linders, who both live in the Netherlands, went on a camping holiday to the Czech Republic last August. On arrival in Prague they became separated, and while she went on to their chosen campsite out of town, he missed the last bus and decided to remain in the city centre until the morning bus service resumed.

While he waited, his money was stolen and he believed a barman, another man and two women had conspired to rob him. He reported it to two passing policemen, who questioned the four, but took the matter no further.

Feeling helpless after losing his money, Stephen says he wrote a note and left it in the entrance of the bar, "in the context of: `You're not just going to take my money like that, you're not going to get way with it and I'll be back'." He says he wrote it "to show the barman I would not forget the fact I was robbed in his bar by people he knew". He spent the rest of the night in a nearby snack bar.

In the early morning, when he had been unable to find a public toilet, Stephen was told by two policemen that he faced a fine for urinating in a public place. But two other men then approached and spoke to the policemen in Czech. It slowly became apparent to Stephen that they were accusing him of smashing the window of the pub he had left the note in. He was arrested, he says, and taken to a police station holding cell without understanding what was going on.

Then followed a five-month nightmare for Stephen. A policeman said that Stephen had broken the window - they had it on videotape, he said. But when Stephen asked to view it, he was told it was not relevant. At this point he believed that the police wanted to find him guilty and that anything he had to say was irrelevant, he says. He asked the police to contact his girlfriend or family. He was told he had no right to make a phonecall.

He says he told a preliminary hearing he was sorry about the situation and that he should not be going to prison. "Later I found out that the translator translated it wrong and had said I said I was sorry for breaking the window," he says.

He realised and explained the mistake four weeks later, after the police recommended that he be released as there was no evidence against him, Stephen says. But the state prosecutor decided to pursue the charges.

In the course of his detention Stephen was denied bail and a witness who had allegedly seen the window being broken failed to turn up on four court dates - spread over two months.

In the meantime, the matter had been raised by Dick Spring, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, with his Czech counterpart and Minister for Justice and by Nora Owen with the deputy Interior Minister. In the course of Stephen's detention, the Irish Ambassador to the Czech Republic also raised the issue at senior political level, and the embassy visited him 11 times and attended his court hearings. Stephen says they did great work on his behalf and their support also helped him through his darkest days.

Stephen Nolan adds that following the level of political interest in the case, "the Czech Republic (ministers) said `we're very embarrassed about it, but there's nothing we can do about it'. But they said `if it was still communist then we'd have control of the courts, but we've no control now we're a republic'. But I wasn't agreeing with any of it."

However, Stephen's third and fourth court hearing on December 3rd and 19th were attended by a representative of the Czech Ministry of Justice.

At the fourth court appearance, the judge found Stephen guilty of breaking the window. He was given a £500 fine or imprisonment for three months, plus life deportation. The judge said he would try to get Stephen home for Christmas.

Stephen says he wanted to appeal, but he believed it would have meant a further wait in prison of at least three months for the case to be heard. "The judge made me an offer I couldn't refuse," he says. So the fine was paid and five days later Stephen was back in Dublin Airport. It was Christmas Eve and he kissed the Irish ground with relief.

But the saga has not ended. He is being billed for breaking the window and for the cost of his prison detention in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, having returned to work in the Netherlands, he in turn has raised the issue of his detention in Prague with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Stephen still feels very angry about his detention and conviction and believes visitors to the Czech Republic should be very wary. He recommends tourists stay off the streets of central Prague and his final word of advise is: "Just don't go".

There is no shortage of tourists: last year 109 million people visited the Czech Republic. A Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman says they are not aware of any other such cases involving tourists in Prague. However, she says visitors should be careful and wary in tourist cities in general.

Making no specific comment on the question of Stephen Nolan's detention or the conditions in which he was held, the Czech Embassy in Dublin points out that the case is closed. A spokesman adds, however, that projects to improve the courts and judiciary are underway.

Undoubtedly serious problems face the Czech legal system - and the government appears to be aware of them. A European Commission Opinion on the Czech Republic's application for EU membership stated last month that the situation of the courts in the Czech Republic constituted a major challenge for the country's integration into the European Union. "The courts are overloaded, numerous cases do not receive a judgment and the average length of commercial law proceedings for example, exceeds three years," it stated.

Ross Larsen, senior editor of the Prague Post, says that the Czech government has expressed concern over the problems in the judiciary identified by the European Commission and conceded that they need to be tackled.