The longer it takes to put a plan into action, the more the plan is likely to change as new factors emerge in the interim. As I was working out the details of my plan to escape from the hospital, I was forced to change plans completely.
Despite his very Hindu-sounding name, Ravinder Krishna Pillai was a Christian from Sri Lanka imprisoned in the UAE and sentenced to death for the killing of an Emirati who had tried to rape him.
I met him briefly in the courtyard of my cellblock and immediately sympathized with his dilemma. Once he received his sentence, he was moved to my section, and we became friends.
He was only 23 when I met him, but his life story was already a catalogue of horrors. His elder brother had been executed by the Sri Lankan army for being a member of the Tamil Tigers, and Ravinder himself was kidnapped as a child by that terrorist organization and forced to be a child soldier for years.
He eventually fled Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers and came to the UAE, where he became the target of a perverted sexual predator. In his attempt to escape his assailant, he accidentally hit the man with his car and killed him. For this he was sentenced to death, and the dead man’s family refused to pardon him.His life was like Oliver Twist as interpreted by Quentin Tarantino.
Being Sri Lankan (a nationality with very little influence in the UAE), and since his case involved an Emirati, I was quite sure that he would in fact be executed. I wanted to help him. His background and training with the Tamil Tigers encouraged me that he might have the will and the skills necessary to escape with me, and I knew already that escape was his only option.
At this point I stopped planning to escape on my own, though it was logistically the most feasible.
#دروس_المعتقل
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