Glenolden guardsman stuck in Dubai prison

[larrymeyer]

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2...2346693536.txt

Glenolden guardsman stuck in Dubai prison
Published: Thursday, June 11, 2009


By PAUL LUCE
pluce@delcotimes.com


Nicholas Taylor, left, 10, holds a picture of Michael Joslin, and Joanne Joslin holds 2-month-old Mackenzie, as Angelina Taylor, 8, looks on at their Glenolden home.

A civilian contractor and Pennsylvania National Guard specialist, jailed in Dubai since early May, is desperate for help from the country he swore an oath to protect, he said Wednesday.

Spc. Michael Joslin, 28, of Glenolden, the father of a 2½-month infant and a stepfather of two, has been detained in a Dubai, United Arab Emirates, jail on charges of carrying a weapon and prescription medication into the country while working for global security contractor EMW in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“This is literally hell on earth,” Joslin said in a telephone interview. He has been incarcerated in Dubai since May 9.

“He is ready to break,” said Joslin’s wife, Joanne, from their home in Glenolden. “He is not really doing all right.”

Hired by technical security provider EMW of Herndon, Va., less than six months ago, Joslin was to report to Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan to work on its security systems after a daylong layover in Dubai International Airport.

However, Joslin’s unloaded personal sidearm and pain medication, which he said were approved by EMW, Philadelphia International Airport and even UAE’s own Emirates Airline, were detected by Dubai customs as illegal items. They were in his checked luggage in the airplane.

According to the U.S. State Department’s Web site, it is illegal to transport firearms into the UAE without express written consent of its government, regardless of airline authorities’ permission. However, the Emirates Airline Web site advises passengers that unloaded weapons are allowed in check-in luggage.

According to Joslin, six days after he was arrested in Dubai, his wife told him he was terminated from EMW — effective immediately — via a FedEx letter to his home.

Joslin said it was an easy way for his company to renege on his $120,000 annual salary. Calls to EMW human resources employee Sara Kingdon were not returned by press time Wednesday.

Joslin said while conditions in the jail where he was being held were terrible, “all things considered, it could be a lot worse.”

Though it is a free-roaming jail with no doors encapsulating the all-concrete cells, Joslin said the bathroom was “absolutely gross.”

“The odor would make a grown man vomit,” he said. “I spent my first five days vomiting in a trash can.”

Joslin also said a breakout of chicken pox, to which he has was inoculated thanks to the National Guard, ravaged the jail since his arrival, sending 35 prisoners to the hospital.

Joslin’s wife said her husband called her after his third day of incarceration, stating three inmates had attacked him while he slept.

“He called me up hysterical,” she said. “He said, ‘Please get me out of here. They are doing everything they can to break me.’”

“I am American, I’m white and I’m a soldier, and they know that because a guard told them,” said Joslin Wednesday. “That’s not something you brag about in the Middle East.”

Because Dubai authorities confiscated his pain medication, Joslin, who has two slipped disks and a removed meniscus due to a recent stateside car accident, said he has been in nearly constant, agonizing pain.

Phone calls and an e-mail to UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba were not returned by press time Wednesday.

Though Joslin’s wife said she has placed numerous calls to the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy, she said neither party has been helpful in providing her with any information about her husband’s situation.

“I ask what is the status of the case, they say they don’t know. I ask what are the charges, and they say, ‘I don’t know,’” Joanne Joslin said.

State Department spokesman Noel Clay said Wednesday the U.S. Consulate was aware of Joslin’s case and has been active in assisting him since his arrest.

“Michael Joslin has received all of the appropriate assistance the U.S. Consulate is able to provide,” Clay said.

Though he said he has met repeatedly with the Dubai prosecutor, who has allegedly told him numerous that he will be released in a matter of hours, Joslin said he has only met once with representatives from the U.S. Consulate’s office.

“They could care less,” he said of the two U.S. Consulate representatives named Jane and Patricia.

“Every time I’ve needed help, they have never showed up.”

Michael Joslin, who dropped out of Neumann University to enlist in the Air Force after the Sept. 11 attacks, said when he asked for Patricia to be present during his first meeting with the Dubai prosecutor, he was assured by the U.S. Consulate that she would be there. She never showed up, he said.

“I can’t believe I put on a uniform for a country, swore to defend it, and then when I need help they say, ‘You are on your own,’” said Joslin, who served four years in the Air Force before joining the Guard while continuing his education.

Calls from the Daily Times to the U.S. Consulate in Dubai were not answered Wednesday.

Joslin’s wife said she has also placed calls to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., to expedite her husband’s safe return.

While Specter’s office was helpful in the beginning, Joanne Joslin said she was “just not getting anywhere at this point.” She has e-mailed Specter’s scheduler to request an emergency face-to-face meeting with the senator, she said.

“I need answers. I’m just not getting them,” she said.

Specter spokeswoman Kate Kelly said the senator’s office has been in contact with the State Department to ensure Joslin is not being mistreated in jail.

“While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country’s laws and regulations,” Kelly said. “The office will continue to monitor the situation and Mr. Joslin’s well-being in concert with the State Department.”

Joanne Joslin said she found U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-7, of Edgmont, quite helpful.

Sestak said his office provided the mother of three with the current update of the State Department’s involvement with the case, and has requested a signed copy of the State Department’s notes on the case.

Sestak said he has also talked with Michael Joslin via prison phone, and has provided him with the most current information possible.

“We have contacted the consulate general in the UAE to further ensure that everything possible is being done and will continue to be done, in order to meet our government’s responsibilities when an American is arrested abroad,” Sestak said in a written statement.

A stay-at-home mom, Joanne Joslin said the family’s main source of income was terminated six days after her husband was incarcerated, when she received his termination papers.

“He is my sole provider,” she said. “I need him home.”

Supporting her family on her unemployment income while trying to maintain their rent-to-own home in Glenolden, Joanne Joslin said that she has been trying to put on a strong front for her children.

“They are in total shock right now,” she said of her children, Nicholas Taylor, 10, and Angelina Taylor, 8, both students at Prospect Park Elementary School. Though 2½-month-old Mackenzie Joslin is too young to understand what’s happening, her mother said the infant still senses something is wrong.

“They are just really sad,” she said. “I try to keep positive for the kids. I have to keep faith. It’s hard, though.”

[Ten*K]

how very nice of his employer. http://www.emw.com/

EMW was founded in 1995 by engineers and managers who formerly held senior positions in well known telecommunications and information technology companies to pursue their vision for this new company.

Our core business is providing information and communication technology services in the areas of planning, engineering and implementation; project and program management; systems integration; operations and maintenance; and training. Our competencies range over all aspects of inside and outside plant; feeder, access and inter-office networks; switching, transmission, multiplexing and data communications equipment; network management, operations support, and asset management systems; information assurance; web enabling; applications software; and beyond. While staying abreast of today’s technologies, we keep a watchful eye on technology trends, and are very serious about future-proofing our solutions.

We play in the global marketplace, and are proud to serve a wide spectrum of distinguished clients from defense and government agencies, as well as commercial enterprise. Our watchwords are competency, innovation, integrity, and—above all—respect and care for the customer.

But fuck your employees... way to go. I sincerely hope every employee there has a crystal clear picture of how little they matter to the company.

and if you layover and your luggage is cleared through the trip, but midway through the trip, your luggage with your declared items is suddenly searched and you are arrested in a Arab country, you can bet your ass it's because you are an American.

just one more reason...

[DennisH82]

Granted it was a shit move by the company, but why did they fire him? Is there more to this story?

[cgbudde]

Funny how this government went into an uproar about those two women who were convicted in North Korea, yet no word or help for this soldier, why because our government has dealings with Dubai.

[DennisH82]

OK, I will say this again, why was he fired? His military status is not a part of this situation since he didn't go over there as a Guardsmen. What laws did he break if any? If his job told him no guns, or drugs in his contract and he took them anyway what does his service or current situation have to do with his detainment? There has to be more to this than what was reported.

[larrymeyer]

No longer feel for this Asshat know the law before you go or you may wind up in another countries Jail

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2...5891660578.txt


'Hell on earth' continues for man stuck in Dubai jail
Published: Friday, June 12, 2009

By Paul Luce
pluce@delcotimes.com

MICHAEL JOSLIN ... Still in Dubai

The former employer of a Pennsylvania National Guardsman from Glenolden, currently incarcerated in a Dubai jail for bringing a sidearm and prescription drugs into the country, said Thursday he violated company rules against bringing firearms into other countries and was not aware of the guardsman’s possession of prescription medication.

Through its Washington, D.C.-based attorney Cohen Mohr, global technical security provider EMW Inc. said it never knew of Michael Joslin’s possession of an unloaded pistol or of pain medication for a back injury.

“EMW never knew of Mr. Joslin’s possession of such items, much less his intent to travel with them to Dubai,” the Herndon, Va.-based company stated in a letter from its attorney. “At no time did EMW approve such actions.”

The U.S. Department of State says it is aware of Joslin’s situation in Dubai and has been assisting him since his arrest on May 9. But its Web site also states firearms and certain prescription medications cannot be brought into the United Arab Emirates.

Nevertheless, a representative of U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., said he has requested a meeting with the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the U.S. to discuss the status of the charges against Joslin, a 28-year-old Air Force veteran, and the conditions of his detainment.

While speaking from a pay phone that he operated through calling cards from weekly commissary trips at the Dubai Airport Deportation Center, Joslin said he was not aware that he needed to get approval for the weapon or the medication and never told EMW his intentions of bringing them.

“It was my decision,” the father of three said, calling EMW a “solid company.”

While the EMW attorney stated that the contract Joslin was scheduled to work in Afghanistan strictly prohibits contractor personnel from carrying firearms in theater, Joslin said he did not have a chance to read through his employee contract.

“I didn’t read my contract very thoroughly,” he said.

The company terminated his contract after his arrest.

Joslin said he was released on bail for nine days after being questioned about possessing a sidearm during a one-day stopover in Dubai en route to Afghanistan. He made bail by surrendering his passport to a Dubai prosecutor. He said he stayed at the house of another American named Rick, whom he befriended while incarcerated. Joslin said he was out on bail until he was called on a purchased cell phone by the Dubai prosecutor, who told him to come in and fill out paperwork.

Upon his return to the jail, Joslin said he was rearrested for failing a urine test that contained amounts of his prescription medications.

While out on bail, Joslin said he e-mailed his former employer.

Though the EMW attorney said the company received this contact, it was not alerted to Joslin’s re-incarceration.

Although he said he tried calling the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi to ask if he could stay there, Joslin said the embassy told him that was not part of their policy.

However, Joslin’s wife, Joanne Joslin, 27, said that she has been in contact with representatives from the office of U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-7, of Edgmont, who informed her that an American Citizen Services officer from the Consul General Sutphin at the U.S. Consulate in Dubai visited her husband on May 10 and May 14.

Another visit is planned for Sunday, Sestak’s office said.

Held in a free-roaming concrete jail, Joslin said conditions in the jail’s bathroom were “absolutely gross,” and spent his first five days vomiting in a trash can. He also said an outbreak of the chicken pox has been ravaging the jail, and has sent 35 prisoners to the hospital.

Joslin also said he was attacked by three inmates after they learned he was a U.S. soldier.

“He called me up hysterical,” his wife said in a previous interview. “He said ‘Please get me out of here. They are doing everything they can to break me.’”

Joslin called the experience “literally hell on earth.”

“He is not really doing all right,” his wife said.

[DennisH82]

Thats another reason to think very hard before taking an assignment in another country. Your SOL if you don't watch your six and make sure you follow all the local customes and regualations. I feel for the kid but he should have known better. They will just bust his chops in the jail for awhile then cut him loose. It's not worth the aggrivation for that goverment should something happen to him in Jail. I hope he has learned his lesson about reading contracts.

[TaePo]

Not to mention, if you really felt you needed it (I say this because it is against the rules), is it so difficult to find a pistol in Afghanistan??

[armabill]

I find it hard to believe that the company fired him and the US abandoned him.

BTW, I live in Glenolden. I don't know the family but I still feel for them.

[mjfletcher]

I can see firing him for the blatant contract violation. As to the US abandoning him, official/proper channels have never been known for speed. There's only so much that can be done and all of it depends on the other country deciding to make things easy.