Kiwis behind bars in many countries

KENT BLECHYNDEN/The Dominion Post

HARSH CONDITIONS: Tony and Racheal Cancian want their brother Danny Cancian [insert] transferred from jail in China to a New Zealand prison. Asthmatic Danny is in a cell with 20 smokers.

Fifty-seven New Zealanders are behind bars in other countries.

They are serving sentences for offences including murder, manslaughter, drugs, fraud and assault.

The family of one, Kapiti businessman Danny Cancian, is pleading for the Government to enter a prisoner transfer programme with China. Cancian is a chronic asthmatic and his brother, Tony, fears he will die in a Chinese jail if he is not transferred home.

Crammed into an eight-metre-by-six-metre detention centre cell with 40 smokers, Cancian has been transferred to a prison cell shared with 20 smoking prisoners. He has been in hospital 15 times and put on oxygen.

Tony Cancian fears his brother, with at least two years of his sentence to serve, will not survive. "I do not think he will make it. He was so skinny in the last photo, he used to be 100 kilos, now he is about 70."

Mr Cancian visited his brother last year and though he was not allowed to talk to him, caught a glimpse of him, hands and feet chained, shuffling across a prison yard in a rundown "slummy" part of south China.

"There were military guards with AK47s over their shoulders. I yelled out we were trying to sort it, he lifted his eyebrows and tried to smile to give the mate's sign he was all right."

Danny Cancian's two children were missing him terribly. "They are very sad, they miss their dad. It is heart-breaking." Cancian has served 20 months of a five-year sentence for using "excessive force" defending himself during a fight in a restaurant in which a man died.

His sister, Racheal, received a call from him – he is allowed 10 minutes on the phone once a month – during which he told her "no money, no food".

The family sends medication and money for food other than rice.

The family had held hopes Prime Minister John Key would discuss Cancian's transfer with the Chinese leadership during his visit this month but this did not eventuate.

New Zealand consular staff will meet Cancian today to discuss the concerns over his treatment.

His wife Amanda also fears for his health. "He needs to be in a smokefree environment to get his health back. Life stops. You go through the motions every day, but we are all just on hold."

Mr Key's office said he had talked to New Zealand's ambassador in Beijing about the next steps that could be taken. "The Government has concerns for Mr Cancian's health and will do whatever is possible to provide support, including a possible move of location."

Graham Cleghorn, 57, of Wellington is serving 20 years in Cambodia for raping five of his employees in Siem Reap, 300 kilometres northwest of Phnom Penh.

He was jailed in 2004 and the Cambodian Court of Appeal has rejected two appeals.

His New Zealand lawyer, Greg King, said this year Cleghorn's health was deteriorating.

Phyllis Tarawhiti was jailed in Thailand in 1995 after being caught with $4 million worth of heroin strapped to her back but returned home last year after a royal pardon.

New Zealand does not have a transfer programme with China and is the only country in the OECD yet to sign up to international prisoner transfers.

The Council of Europe's Convention on the Transfer of Prisoners is the biggest such agreement, involving 61 countries. About eight of them have also ratified the Commonwealth Scheme for the Transfer of Convicted Offenders. There is also a pan-American treaty with 17 signatories, and Middle Eastern and African states have deals.

The Labour government opposed New Zealand signing a deal and the present government is taking no action.

- © Fairfax NZ News