Below is my letter (with the addition of charts and minor changes) that I was able to submit to Noonsite.com with a help of my friends - Andrey Andreev who was discharged from Anamuya jail in June 2013 and Guennadi Filkov who forwarded the letter to Noonsite.com.
An Unpublished Noonsite Article About My Voyage From Curacao To Dominican Republic's Prison
Canadian sailboat arrested in Dominican Republic (DR)
I departed Curacao on April 26, 2013 on my Hallberg Rassy 31 Monsoon named Beruta (http://beruta.creatica.org/log.html) for the Dominican marina Cap-Cana located on the east coast of DR in Mona Passage. I had properly cleared customs and immigrations on Curacao and had all necessary documents on board including so called "despacho", which clearly stated my departure and destination ports, a boat registration and valid Canadian and Russian passports.
I intended to visit my 2-year old daughter Yana, who lived in Bavaro with her mom and a new dad. On my last voyage to DR in January we made a written notarized agreement where I stated that every 3 months I would pay child support and see Yana.
On April 29, 2013 approximately between 2 and 3 PM local time about 5 to 10 nautical miles south of Cap-Cana I was approached by a drug control power boat (DNCD) with 4 men armed with guns and automatic guns.
They only spoke Spanish. I knew a few Spanish words but not many and could hardly understand the officers. I said that I was sailing from Curacao to Cap Cana. They asked to see my papers. Two men boarded Beruta breaking my toe rail when getting close without fenders. I was very disappointed by the collision and thought I should have reported it to IMO.
DNCD officers asked if I had a satellite phone.
I had not. They confiscated me cell phone. They said that I was not allowed to come to DR because I did not have visa and because I was in DR in January.
I knew that all these were not true. I tried to explain as much as I could that most vessels clear customs, immigration and drug control authorities in a marina upon arrival. Sailors pay $10 to get visa and about $150 in other fees.
DNCD officers did not allow me to touch anything, especially electronics. I had to argue with them to be able to remove the sun shade, which interfered with manual steering. They urinated on the bow against the wind and peed themselves and my deck all over!
On my chartplotter they found a line, which I drawn to keep Beruta off the reefs near Cap-Cana. Because the only way to draw a line on a Raymarine chartplotter was to make a route, the destination point of this line happened to be a little north of marina Cap Cana, which I did not care but which made the officers think that I was sailing somewhere else.
When we arrived in Cap-Cana 1.5 - 2 hours later, the marina was full. That surprised me because on my last 2 visits it had been empty.
I had not made reservation. (This, of course, increased the suspicion of the officers about my destination.) The marina only had room along the concrete wall meant for bigger boats. My fenders did not really work because of the ribs on the wall.
The mooring lines were tearing off the wall. The DNCD officers put cuffs on my hands behind my back and ordered me to sit still in the cockpit.
After couple of hours their chief arrived and began investigating my chartplotter, making pictures on his camera.
One or two hours later a woman came who spoke little English. She was the prosecutor. She might have brought the orders for my arrest and to search the boat. During the search I had to assist the officers with my hands behind my back still in cuffs. I accidentally tightened them up and hurt my wrists. They refused to loosen my cuffs for another hour or two until we get to the police station.
They did not find anything illegal on my boat. They took my documents, banking cards, approximately $3000 in cash, two laptops, memory cards and keys from the boat. Most of the money was for my daughter. I had locked the boat but found later that most of it could have been sold out by pieces. I should have requested from the prosecutor a complete list of all the things on Beruta.
In Bavaro police station POLITUR they only made a list of things that they took with them.
I asked to inform Canadian and Russian Embassies of my arrest. The promised to do it next day but did it only 3 days later. I also asked to call my ex-wife Liliia. They gave me my cell phone for 5 minutes but it did not work, perhaps due to the roaming and insufficient balance in my account. The police did not allow me to use their phones.
While they were busy with papers, another man all covered with blood walked in. His arms were wounded.
The police asked if we knew each other. We both said "no". Later I found that they caught him with some kilos of cocaine in his car, which they thought I was going to move to Puerto Rico. On the first report there had been 39 kg of drugs but next day this figure was dropped to 6 kg. The rest was probably stolen by the police.
Besides chart plotter's waypoints there was one more "evidence" of my involvement in drug trafficking - the recorded phone call. That was why the DNCD had been looking for a satellite phone on Beruta, and on numerous occasions had been trying to catch me in speaking Spanish fluently. The phone call was a real mystery, perhaps something that was fabricated against me. Initially the prosecution was saying that it was me who spoke with the guy caught with drugs and the conversation was in Spanish. Later they changed the language to English. Even later the whole conversation was changed again back to Spanish but this time it was not me on the phone but somebody else had been speaking about some little sailboat that had already been arrested in some marine and searched for drugs with a help of a dog! Also, this recorded conversation had been done over cellular phones, not the satellite.
Well, my boat was arrested but it was searched much later and there were no dogs! Besides in the conversation they did not mention that it had been the same boat that was supposed to transfer drugs.
Later that night the police moved both of us across the country to Santo Domingo DNCD headquarters and put in jail.
Two days later (with no food or water for the entire time) I was interrogated by 2 USA DEA special agents. They explained that their role in the DR was to mentor and advise.
As I found from the news, they also sold DNCD an unmanned airplane that DNCD used to intercept phone calls and took bearings on the location of a call. This meant that there was another boat close to mine. And indeed there was a power boat that motored along Beruta approximately one hour before the DNCD arrived. Of course, they did not see that on their radar.
In my file I found the coordinates of the satellite phone: 18°30'N 068°11'W. This point is 11 miles exactly east of the entrance to marina Cap-Cana! I was arrested approximately 1.5 miles off the shore and 8 miles south of the entrance. From that position to the satphone location was 15 nautical miles or 4 hours of sailing! (At that time against the wind, waves and the current I was making less than 4 knots.)
The DEA agents also said that if the connection with Puerto Rico became clear, than there was a possibility of transferring me to the US court.
The DEA agents appeared to be on my side and after I explained the chart plotter thing, they said that they would talk to DNCD immediately. I thought that I would be released next day.
But next day around 5 AM three of us (another young Dominican fellow was arrested in connection with this case) were moved to Higuey court.
At that time I was able to get hold of Leonid, a husband of my ex-wife, and asked him to find me English speaking lawyer for me, and he did.
The lawyer was able to postpone the court till May 7 based on the fact that I did not have an interpreter.
I was brought into so called "preventivo" - a local prison with absolutely unhuman conditions. In a 12 square meter cell (3 of which were taken for the toilet) the police kept 30 to 35 people! No food and very little water. Prisoners had to pay 150 peso per cell to take showers twice a day.
On Tuesday May 7 the court was postponed again till Thursday May 9, when the judge decided to give the prosecution 3 months to collect the evidence against me and ordered to keep me in jail despite the fact that the lawyers asked for the bail.
On Saturday May 11 2013 I was moved to a new large prison in Anamuya. It had 8 pavilions with 24 cells in each one. A cell had 6 people.
June 2 2013. I'm still in jail. The lawyers are trying to appeal but the date for a new court is not set yet. Basically, a "law" in DR allows a person to be held in prison for up to 3 years without a formal accusation! Initial 3 months are usually extended by another 3 months, then another and so on. Innocent people can be detained without any real evidence for the entire investigation, which can take up to 3 years! People spend thousands of dollars for lawyers, loose their jobs, families, some even lost their lives. For example, if you get sick, you will not get proper health care. 30 people died infected with cholera in "preventivo". One man died in Anamuya - he had kidney problem.
At the time of writing I don't know how to prevent a situation like mine. It is very easy to get behind the bars in the DR. People fabricate cases against other people, police put cocaine in somebody's pockets, and foreigners are arrested just because they happened to be in a wrong place at a wrong time and did not run while others simply escaped. Once you are in a jail it is very difficult to get out.
Nobody cares about you anymore.
Because of the cases like mine, tourists and sailors will stop going to DR. The tourism industry will lose due to the failed and corrupted justice system.
If anybody can or knows how to help me, please contact my ex-wife Liliia (liliiavalova@gmail.com) or her husband Leonid (skype: leonidomin).
Arkadi Poliakevitch
Captain of s/v Beruta
June 2, 2013
And this is the response that my friend Guennadi received from noonsite.com:
Dear Guennadi,
Thanks for contacting us.
It seems your friend Arkadi is more than simply a visiting cruising sailor to the DR (he has a daughter there etc.).
His case is therefore far more complicated than simply coming across rather bureaucratic officials.
We will therefore not be publishing the letter.
Regards,
Sue Richards
noonsite