No pardon for Bryant
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by Sally Nash • Hopes that Steve Bryant, the owner-driver jailed in Morocco for drugs trafficking, would be freed this month have been dashed once again after he failed to receive a King's pardon.
Bryant was moved from Tangier jail to Rabat last month, raising expectations of an early release. But he was not named in the list of people receiving King's pardons on 9 July.
"We haven't heard any thing from anybody," says his father, Peter. "What is even worse is that it was Steve's birthday last week—a King's pardon would have been a good birthday present."
Steven Jacobi, the director of legal pressure group Fair Trials Abroad, says that there is still hope. "We believe that someone will eventually see sense about the case and he will be released," he says. "But we can't tell when."
However, the British Embassy in Rabat says: "The official line is that there are to be no pardons for drug offences."
The Embassy in Tangier says it usually knows if a prisoner is to be released because of the fines involved. No such information has been forthcoming in Bryant's case, says a spokeswoman. "A King's pardon can be seen as a totally arbitrary decision," she adds, "but it is not very likely in Bryant's case."
Bryant has spent the past three years in prison after being convicted of carrying cannabis in a load of squid picked up from a Moroccan factory.
He has always maintained that he was set up by a drugs gang.
Jacobi stresses that the fight for Steve's release will continue. He wants to make the situation in Morocco a prime example of where the new Labour Government should be looking at human rights.
Two weeks ago Jacobi, who wants the Government to call for Bryant's pardon, sent out a memorandum about the case to MPs. "What we can do is nothing compared to what can be done politically," he says.