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MOTIHARI, INDIA — The foreign prisoner wakes up earlier than most of the inmates at India's notorious Motihari prison.
By 4:30 a.m., he's up off the dirt floor of his cell, where only blankets protect him from a cruel winter wind. His slim book collection - the Bible and the Koran - is exhausted, and the prison staff doesn't put him to work, so his only activity is cooking food for himself, since he's been sickened by what's provided.
With little distraction, the same maddening thought runs though Saul Itzhayek's mind over and over again.
"I spend my days thinking about going home to my family," the 42-year-old Montreal native said in an interview, his face little more than a shadow behind a metal screen. "That's all I want. I don't think about anything else."
Mr. Itzhayek, the first and only Westerner imprisoned behind these ancient walls, may have a long wait. He was sentenced in May for trying to enter India with an expired visa and, after an interrogation, dispatched to a dirt floor for three years.
His problems began while he was in neighbouring Nepal on "half vacation, half business" - a region the businessman has been working in for the past 17 years. He sent an Indian driver into India to pick up a money transfer, but Indian police stopped him at the border and summoned Mr. Itzhayek to explain what he was doing. He says the police knew he didn't have a visa, but said it was okay.
"I had no intention of coming to India. But [Indian officials] said, 'We can work it out.' " When he arrived, however, he was arrested. "It's all about the money," he explained, saying the police wanted a bribe. "I had 50,000 [rupees] in my bag. Not enough. They wanted 10 times that amount."
Mr. Itzhayek was charged with violating India's sovereignty, and has spent every day since in this isolated prison on the border with Nepal. On an afternoon visit, only his cigarette smoke escaped to the outside world.
"I was 265 when I came here," he says. "Now, I weigh 210."
Concerns about Mr. Itzhayek's condition have led to visits from Canadian politicians and diplomats, hoping to have him deported to Canada - a measure that has been enacted for foreigners facing a similar charge in the past.
"It's just way, way too much suffering," his sister, Sylvia, said from Montreal. "And it's too much for all of us. It's affected all our lives."
Joining the chorus of pleas are Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, as well as Helena Guergis, a Conservative MP and the minister responsible for consular affairs. Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier raised the issue during a visit this month to New Delhi.
Indian justice, however, is showing little sign of bending.
"We need to appreciate that the Indians see this primarily as a legal case," Canadian High Commissioner David Malone said from New Delhi.
Mr. Malone, working closely with Mr. Itzhayek's lawyer in New Delhi, sees several legal options to be explored. Most promising is an appeal in the works, and a bail hearing in the coming days. The high commission has also petitioned both the President of India and the governor of Bihar - the state where the prison is located - for a pardon.
"They've been polite about it," Mr. Malone said. "They've been interested in it. They've made absolutely no commitment, largely because the legal procedures are under way."
If all it took was sympathy to free Mr. Itzhayek, then the man who interrogated him would unlock the cell himself.
"We feel sorry for him," said Sunil Kumar Jha, a police superintendent. But sitting at his desk in his white-walled office, surrounded by one-way mirrors, his ready smile belied the grim reality. "He has almost completed one year, right?" he asked. "He will be here for another two."
At the prison itself, within the span of half an hour, two heavy police trucks had already backed up to the gate to unleash a fresh horde of inmates. The heavy main door didn't swing open for them, only a smaller door-within-the-door, which forced prisoners to duck at the threshold before disappearing inside.
"They live like oxen in there, like pigs," grunted Sujeet Khan in disgust as he looked on from the gates. He was trying to visit his brother-in-law, who is serving a sentence for property fraud.
Even so, not all the inmates seem to mind prison life. Officials have been unable - or unwilling - to crack down on cellphones, allowing crime lords to administer their empires from inside the prison. From behind those spit-stained walls, notorious gangsters such as Munna Sharma have been accused of terrorizing citizens in both Nepal and India, including prison guards themselves.
"You've got all kinds of criminals in here," Mr. Itzhayek said. "There's a guy in here for three years for stealing a sack of potatoes."
Mr. Itzhayek has already endured a prison riot, as well as a bout of poisoning from the well water. He cooks his own food over a fire in his cell.
But you will have to take his word for it.
"They don't want anyone to see me," Mr. Itzhayek said. "If you could see in here with your eyes, you would flip."
Special to The Globe and Mail
