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Four-and-half years ago driver John Mills was locked in a tiny room with no windows and an electric light which stayed on for 24 hours. He was about to be found guilty of heroin smuggling in a Bulgarian court—but to this day protests his innocence. Now free, Mills tells Charles Young about life inside, and the risks of trucking in Bulgaria...
WHEN THE BULGARIAN border guards started checking John Mills' truck in the summer of 1995, he had no reason to be nervous. The driver from North London had just woken up on the Turkish/Bulgarian border in a vehicle that had been cleared by Turkish guards just the previous day.
In retrospect he probably should have driven straight through into Bulgaria rather than sleeping in no man's land. But he was wary of the stories of lone trucks being hijacked at night by none other than the Bulgarian police—an example of what Mills later referred to as Bulgaria's "rubber law".
In the event, the Bulgarian guards stripped his truck to the bare chassis before coming across a couple of bags of heroin in the unlocked trailer lockers.
Strange that they should have left the lockers till last, Mills thought later. Why not check them first and save themselves the bother of stripping the chassis? But then the way Mills tells it, the guards had planted the heroin themselves and were simply trying to make the scam look less obvious.
Mills was immediately accused of drugs smuggling and both he and driver's mate Peter Hobbs were thrown into a holding cell. For the next 28 days they were incarcerated in a tiny room with no windows and an electric light bulb that was permanently on. There were no showers and the food was so bad that Mills hardly ate. He lost three stone in a month, which was a fitting prelude to the life both would lead for the next four years.
Customs official
At the trial Mills' lawyer tried to have the case thrown out for lack of evidence but the judge allegedly said "I'm not interested" and sentenced them to seven-and-a-half-years. The lawyer later told Mills that the judge was married to a customs official.
His second experience of Bulgaria's "rubber law" soon followed—he was invited to reduce his sentence to two years. The price was L30,000. "I later found out that in prison you can buy anything from a woman to cocaine," says Mills. "And you can also buy your freedom. One Turkish bloke who was in for life paid half a million dollars to be released."
But like most truck drivers Mills didn't have that kind of money and had no option but to be led away to Bulgaria's capital city Sofia to start what he thought was going to be a very long and difficult sentence.
"When I first got to Sofia F was made to strip naked and squat down," he says. "They threw my bag all over the room and cut it open. Then they got a knife and held it under my chin before swiping it away to scare me. Peter was shaking for four days after that."
Mills' cell measured r2,x8ft and housed five other prisoners. Heating was non-existent and during the winter ice up to half an inch thick formed on the inside of the windows.
The washing facilities consisted of a small room that contained a toilet with no door, a shower and a trough to wash clothes in. Exercise was an hour outside once a day except in winter it was too cold to go into the yard. "If you went out you had to stay out for the full hour," says Mills. "In the end you didn't bother."
But in a lot of ways Mills was more fortunate than his fellow inmates. The guards, who dealt in violence and intimidation, were lenient towards him because, according to Mills, they were afraid of the British embassy.
Others however felt the full brunt of the guards' brutality Mills claims that one 18year-old Bulgarian inmate was beaten to death; in another incident a Hungarian woman was made pregnant by being continually raped for two days and a night.
Solace, such as it was, could be had from the doctor—himself a class-A junkie—or the dentist who did a bustling trade in heroin.
Sitting at his kitchen table in Enfield, Mills recounts these and other horrors in calm measured tones; all the while fixing you with his piercing blue eyes. His manner makes it difficult to hear his story with any degree of scepticism but also gives the impression that he has come out of it remarkably well.
His girlfriend, Dot, insists the ordeal hasn't changed him. And Mills quickly points out that this is partly due to the support he received from her. Dot wrote to him every day and appealed for donations from sympathetic hauliers at South Mimms truckstop.
The money was spent on food parcels for Mills to mix with the prison's offering that "wasn't fit for pigs". Even these, however, couldn't prevent the loss of eight teeth through malnutrition.
Strong mind
In between letters from Dot, Mills had to rely on what he refers to as his "strong mind" and the bonds he formed with other, mainly nonBritish, inmates. "I've always been able to control my mind and laugh when bad things happen," he explains. "In the four years I suppose I really got depressed only twice. At least three people I know went mad in there. I kept busy by playing dominoes, learning the language and talking to other inmates. To survive you've got to be very diplomatic. A lot of the prisoners have Mafia connections."
After four years and three months the British Embassy in Bulgaria secured his release thanks to a Bulgarian practice that allows convicts to go free having served half their sentence.
Back in Enfield Mills, now 54, has adjusted well to freedom, but he is still painfully thin and has some sleeping problems. He's looking forward to getting back on the road and is planning an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
As for Bulgaria, he simply says: "I'm never going back."
BEWARE IN [alivijilV
John Mills' experiences in Bulgaria have taught him the following points the hard way—he now wants to pass on this advice to British hauliers: • Don't have an accident Mills tells of a Turkish driver whose truck was run into by a car. The Turk was convicted of the equivalent of driving without due care and attention and sentenced to 18 months. Another Turk had a blow-out, which killed his son. He was tried for murder. • Don't travel alone at night. The police, according to Mills, have been known to hijack lone vehicles. Travel in groups of three or more.
• Check your vehicle thoroughly. "Check every crack and crevice," he says. "But even then remember if you're going to be fitted up, you'll be fitted up."
• And finally..."Ikdt go there, says Mills. "I'm not being over dramatic—it's not worth the trouble."