Support for ex-soldier in Kuwait jail
THE military friends of a South African National Defence Force soldier serving a life sentence in Kuwait for drug-trafficking have rallied behind him in an attempt to get him freed or have his sentence commuted.
Military veteran Gareth Rutherford runs a blog from the Kuwait Central Prison, in which he has explained his version of events on the day of his arrest.
On his way to the airport for a flight to Cape Town from Kuwait on September 18 2008 he was asked to pick up a package in the city for a friend.
Rutherford did not think much of it. He stopped at a tyre shop and men loaded tyres onto the vehicle he was travelling in.
When he left the tyre shop‚ he drove straight into what he believes was a trap – law enforcement officials cornered him and searched his vehicle, and found hashish hidden inside the tyres.
Rutherford said in the blog that his lawyer hardly ever pitched up for court dates and he did not have an interpreter‚ which affected him adversely.
In the end, he was made to sign a confession, written in Arabic and not translated to him.
A military friend, Dawid Lotter‚ said: “He would never do the thing that they are accusing him of. He is not that kind of person.”
Lotter has set up an online petition to try to get his friend’s sentence mitigated.
Rutherford was initially sentenced to death, but this was later changed to a life sentence.
Lotter said he had met Rutherford in 1980 during Operation Sceptic. Rutherford was a lance corporal and Lotter a captain.
Rutherford was awarded a medal for bravery.
“In the battlefield, while everything was burning and people were dying‚ Gareth was running around in the chaos to rescue his comrades,” he said.
Lotter refuses to give up on his friend stuck in the Middle East.
He has called on his fellow ex-soldiers who served with him and Rutherford to sign the petition and spread the word.
Lotter aims to get 5 000 signatures on the petition so that he can take it to the Emir in Kuwait.
The petition has garnered 1 799 signatures so far.