Maori coach's Nepal torture hell

BY NEIL REID

Top rugby coach Willie Hetaraka has told for the first time of being tortured by police after he suffered a brain haemorrhage while detained in Nepal over his New Zealand passport.

Hetaraka, former assistant coach of the New Zealand Maori team, said he was stopped by immigration authorities at Kathmandu airport. He had been bound from India, whose national team he coached for three seasons, to Germany for a meeting with movie bosses over a film based on his life and times in rugby.

Queried about his newly-issued New Zealand passport – among the first to contain a microchip – he said he was told under Nepal law he could be held in jail for up to three weeks without any charges being laid while the authenticity of the passport was checked.

"People have no idea about the protocols over there," said Hetaraka, a senior sergeant and Manukau area controller in his 18-year police career here before taking up the Indian coaching job in 2004.

"I said, 'Where is your prima facie case mate?'. But the attitude was, 'It is Nepal law, you are a foreigner, 21 days – see you'."

Hetaraka, 45, said he was told he would be able to leave the country if he paid $US8000 ($11,300). When he rejected that, he was put into Dili Bazaar jail in the Nepalese capital.

"Here I am, a former police chief, stuck inside the prison," he said.

"And it wasn't a prison – it was a horse stable at the bottom of a castle. It was worse than a prison – there was no bed, no pillow, no bedding. The bricks on the ground was where you slept."

Hetaraka said he witnessed fellow inmates being hit with sticks by guards.

"I am used to policing the New Zealand way. Welcome to the Nepal way," he said.

Enduring what he said were appalling conditions in Dili Bazaar, the Kiwi suffered a brain haemorrhage just days before he was due to be released.

Hospitalised, he said he was then tortured with boiling water by police who thought he was faking his life-threatening illness.

"When I got to hospital, I was lying on the bed and the paralysis set in," Hetaraka said.

"It was in my first night in hospital – they poured hot water on my legs. I felt a hot sensation like a hot water bottle, the officers were laughing. The nurses were screaming their heads off.

"When I woke up in the morning the nurse said, 'Dirty policeman, look what he do'."

He was left paralysed down the left-hand side of his body for five weeks.

"In many ways it was a blessing I had the brain haemorrhage – it put me in hospital. It took me out of the prison," Hetaraka said.

Alone and increasingly desperate in a Nepalese hospital, he had to teach himself to walk again.

"I started slowly by trying to lift my toilet bag with my left hand. Then I thought maybe I could put the bag on the end of my leg and try to lift it up."

During his time in the Kathmandu hospital, Hetaraka said he had to pay local sherpas to source medicine and food from markets.

After regaining sufficient mobility, he was allowed to return to New Zealand – where he underwent intensive rehabilitation.

Hetaraka, coach of the Sri Lankan rugby side at the time, has told Sunday News of his 2006 alleged ordeal in Nepal ahead of the story being set to go global.

He said he was in negotiations with the makers of Banged Up Abroad, the hit British documentary series featuring horror stories of people arrested while travelling abroad.

Hetaraka is also working with publishers on a tell-all book.

He has gone public in a month in which he has been honoured by the Government of Guam for his services to rugby.

Hetaraka, who has coached the American territory's rugby side on a voluntary basis since 2008, has been awarded the equivalent of a Queen's Service Medal.

"I feel very honoured – it is very humbling and welcoming," he said.

"Part of my rehabilitation is to get back into coaching, and I am thankful to Guam for giving me the opportunity."

Hetaraka, who said he spent eight weeks in Waikato Hospital after returning from Nepal, said he could no longer work fulltime.

"But hey, I am just glad to be alive," he said.

"I said to my doc, `When do I get over this?'. He said, `Well for some people, never'. For some people when they have a stroke, they can't walk or talk.

"I am still rehabilitating. I still have problems with my left hand with the micro-skills and motor-skills, with things like picking up a pin or a pen.

"As well as being thankful to my family, I'm also very grateful for the support I got from close mates in the rugby community. And I will repay their favours."

Nepal police Deputy Inspector General Binod Singh said he couldn't comment on Hetaraka's claims.

Singh referred Sunday News to Nepalese police spokesman Bigyan Raj Sharma.

Attempts to contact Sharma were unsuccessful.

- © Fairfax NZ News