Wednesday - September 03, 2008

BRITISH ENGINEER SWIMS JUNGLE RIVER IN A DARING ESCAPE.

Film @ 7. Reads like a movie. Nothin’ for me to add here.

British engineer swims jungle river in escape from Gambia
A British engineer who was being held in Gambia accused of illegally mining uranium has broken out of the country in a daring escape.
By Nick Allen
Last Updated: 1:38AM BST 03 Sep 2008

Charlie Northfield, 48, fled the capital Banjul and then evaded a series of police check points as he made an audacious dash through the West African jungle for the Senegalese border.

He shaved off his hair and beard to evade authorities and hid in a series of vehicles on the 125-mile journey to the Senegalese capital Dakar.

Mr Northfield said: The most frightening part was reaching a river that I had been told would be shallow enough to walk through Photo: ALAMY

At one point, his 4X4 suffered a puncture on a hazardous road through the bush and he had to swim across a flood-swollen, crocodile infested river with his clothes in a bucket.

A British-based private security firm, which had helped sneak Mr Northfield out of Banjul while he was effectively under house arrest, managed to smuggle him across the border despite his passport having been confiscated.

They then supplied him with temporary travel papers and flew him to Morocco and on to London.

The father-of-three, originally from Plymouth in Devon, was detained on February 18 after authorities in the West African country accused him and his employers, Carnegie Minerals, of commercially mining titanium, iron ore and uranium using their licence for excavating mineral sands.

Mr Northfield was charged with “economic crimes” and spent 10 days in Gambia’s notorious Mile 2 prison before being released, without his passport, on bail of £250,000. He had been under effective house arrest for six months.

His case has since been backed by the legal charity Fair Trials International, which called for his return to the UK and said the charges against him “flew in the face of common sense and all available evidence”.

Mr Northfield arrived back at Heathrow 72 hours after first being bundled into a car outside his house in Banjul.

He said: “It was unbelievably scary. I’m a normal bloke so the situation was completely out of the ordinary for me, like something in a film.

“I was driven in a few different taxis and we passed through several police check points. The driver sorted things out but I was worried someone would recognise me as my face had been plastered on the front pages of their papers. Luckily I had a good shave and cut my hair so I looked a lot different.

“The most frightening part was reaching a river that I had been told would be shallow enough to walk through.

“It was swollen and quite fast-flowing so I had to strip off, put all of my belongings in a bucket and swim across pushing it in front of me.

“The river was about 50 yards across and I was swept another 100 yards downstream. By the time I reached the other side I was completely worn out.”

The escape was set up by Profile Security Services, a British-based private security consultancy run by ex-army officer, Captain Martin McGowan-Scanlon.

He has known Mr Northfield for 20 years and worked in countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea.

He said: “Charlie is a very relieved man. It has been a long journey. The regime in Gambia had used him as a pawn in its disagreement with his employers. He was not escaping justice, he was escaping injustice.”

Carnegie Minerals had been operating in Gambia since 1999, digging mineral sands which are sent to China for use in construction. Mr Northfield went to manage the project last October.

The charges against him and the company related to “understatement” of the value and content of mineral exports between 2006 and December 2007. Officials accused them of illegally mining uranium, titanium and iron ore.

Carnegie strongly refuted the charges, saying that titanium and iron oxide were components of mineral sands, while uranium was only found in trace elements and could not be economically extracted.

A spokesman for Carnegie refused to comment but denied the firm had helped or arranged for Mr Northfield to be smuggled out of Gambia.

Mr Northfield, originally from Plymouth, normally lives in Thailand with his wife Neung and children. Back in Plymouth he celebrated with a glass of wine.

He said: “I had been to court 13 times but they were no closer to starting the trial and I had a strong sense they never would be.

“We had tried negotiating with every available authority but to no avail and I was feeling desperate.”

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Posted by Drew458     on 09/03/2008 at 01:59 AM   
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