Summary of events

The Gareth Rutherford Case

Gareth Rutherford is a British Citizen, born in Cape Town and educated at South African College School.  He studied Civil Engineering and has worked in engineering consultancy and run a small contracting company.
Having been conscripted into the South African Army at the age of 20, he was awarded the Honorus Crux medal for bravery (South Africa’s highest military bravery award); as an infantry medic he had tended to wounded soldiers during a fierce battle, saving lives whilst under fire with no regard for his own safety.

Gareth later worked as a civilian “Ministry of Defence” contractor for a British company in Basra, serving the British Military based at the Basra airport military enclave in Iraq.  As such he fell under British military close protection and was obliged to follow UK Military safety procedures.  By 2008 he had held this post for five years.

In the early morning of the 18th of September 2008, Gareth was heading off on leave via a booking made through the RAF Movements Office.  He flew with a RAF C130 from Basra in Iraq to the Kuwait Military Airport where he arrived along with British Embassy staff who were also on leave; he travelled with them in the official embassy vehicle to Kuwait City.

Gareth then slept for a couple of hours at a hotel used by his company.  A company vehicle had been left for him at the hotel and he drove off to see his employers who were expecting him at the company office in Kuwait City. Gareth was carrying company cash with him.

Whilst on his way to the office, Gareth got a call from his Iraqi interpreter in Basra asking him to collect some equipment from a specific garage in Jahra; the collection was apparently a favour for their cement suppliers. At the garage two Kuwaiti citizens loaded wheelbarrows, spades, tools and a large tyre onto the pickup - one of a set of tyres that the men had in their car. As Gareth was refuelling the vehicle, the interpreter called again and spoke to Gareth for a few minutes to check the progress of the collection, he told Gareth to drop the equipment at a known tyre repair shop near the Holiday Inn in Kuwait City.        

Gareth headed off and was subsequently arrested by approximately ten waiting policemen as he approached the tyre shop. He had been nowhere near a border crossing or back to the international airport and was driving a vehicle that had been kept at the hotel in Kuwait. All of these facts could have been corroborated if investigated.

Gareth’s arresting officers and accusers alleged that he had driven across the border from Iraq with the spare tyre filled with drugs in the vehicle and was thus a “trafficker”, the most severe of the drug offences. They claimed that the company cash he was carrying was evidence of this. Kuwaiti citizens at a garage in Kuwait had loaded the tyre on to the vehicle; there were many witnesses to this, but it was never investigated.

The Criminal Investigation Police forced Gareth to sign a statement under extreme duress, having been threatened, manhandled and kept in isolation in the dark for four days.  The statement was written in Arabic and he was told that it was a translation of his statement of the events. It transpired that it was not a translation of his statement but rather a fabricated confession that he had brought the tyre filled with drugs over the border from Iraq. Gareth had not been given access to an independent interpreter or an English-speaking lawyer at this stage.  

A trial was held during which Gareth was not able to testify. There was no clear or correct translation provided during the proceedings.

The trial ran for a period of approximately six months, Gareth made only eight, very brief, appearances, the longest lasting for around ten minutes. Gareth was given an UK embassy appointed lawyer who consulted with Gareth for no more than 40 minutes throughout the entire case; the lawyer was not even present at all the court appearances.

An appeal was held two months after the initial verdict: a life sentence of 25 years. Gareth made an appearance lasting 7 minutes; his lawyer did not consult with him at all for the appeal appearance. There was no opportunity for testimony, no witnesses were called and no evidence was presented. The outcome was the same, a life sentence of 25 years in Kuwaiti prison.

Gareth has been in prison in Kuwait since 2008 following these two very questionable trials.

We wish to raise a voice of appeal to the Emir of Kuwait, the Kuwaiti Government, the UK Government and the UK Prime Minister.

This case needs to be properly investigated and Gareth must be released.