Gilbert Plains man finally allowed to return home after a year trapped in Abu Dhabi

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This article was published 08/11/2015 (3603 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Wayne Becks hugged his six-year-old son this weekend for the first time in more than a year.

An oil worker for an overseas company based in Abu Dhabi, the Manitoba man finally made it home to Canada early Saturday when he was allowed on his flight out of the United Arab Emirates city using a passport that had its corner cut off by the Canadian embassy and had been cancelled in Abu Dhabi.

“I told them (at the airport) this is the new passport, the new style, the new ones are cut and thank god they didn’t look at my picture page that well (where it said ‘cancelled,’ ” Becks, 32, said of airport staff in Abu Dhabi. “They (the Canadian embassy) could have gave me the paper (emergency travel document) and left my passport not cut and stamped.”

Becks, from Gilbert Plains, had been stranded in the UAE with no passport and no way home since Nov. 16, 2014, when he was arrested at the airport in Abu Dhabi on a legal matter that he thought was resolved. He’s paid tens of thousands in fines and had to have his parents sell off some of his possessions to send him money to survive. He hasn’t been able to work since last spring. Gilbert Plains is 350 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, and is near Dauphin.

Reached at his parents’ home in Gilbert Plains, where he spent the past two days with his son Rayden, Becks said the ordeal in the desert has changed his outlook.

“We played hockey in the garage, we went skating; it’s unbelievable how he’s changed. He’s a little man now,” Becks said.

“I’ve been home for two days now and it’s awesome. I picked some apples from the tree, I’ve been outside on the quad, the Harley and I’ve seen the rain, the snow. I don’t really care about money now,” he said. “I’m still the same Wayne but it’s made me think a lot about what can happen and the importance of the small things in life that money can’t buy.”

It started with what Becks said was a misunderstanding on July 3, 2014, when he was accused of impersonating a police officer in public. He had gone to a bank machine wearing an Arabic outfit because his clothes were in the hotel laundry. He said he joked with some locals about not stealing his money and, shortly after, he was arrested and jailed for a week. He got a local lawyer to address the matter in court, paid the fine and was under the impression the case was settled, so he went home for his time off. When he returned to the UAE on Nov. 10, 2014, to work his next stretch, he was arrested at the airport, his passport was seized and he was jailed for five days. In his absence, unbeknownst to him, the local prosecutor had filed an appeal of his case.

When he was let out of jail Nov. 16, 2014, he set about trying to resolve the new legal issue. He paid more fines and was assured the matter before the courts was resolved on June 29, 2015, but a downward spiral of events continued for him. UAE authorities refused to give back his passport and put him under a travel ban. In the meantime, his work permit expired. Without a passport, he couldn’t work and he couldn’t leave. The Canadian embassy told him it could do nothing for him as long as UAE authorities held his passport. In August, the courts closed for the remainder of the summer.

He had been living in the desert camps provided by the National Drilling Company, but when his permit expired, he had to find somewhere else to go. He lived in hotels, if he had money, and relied on the kindness of a friend and his fiancée Areej, a lawyer who worked for the Abu Dhabi court. She has come to Canada with him.

In September, his passport expired in the custody of UAE authorities. In early October, Passport Canada issued him a Limited Validity passport, charging him $1,000, but it was useless under the travel ban.

In mid-October, the court dismissed his case. He applied to the embassy for an emergency travel document, which involved him paying for a third time to have court documents translated from Arabic to English.

In late October, the travel ban was lifted but he had to pay a new lawyer to go to court with him to get the confirmation document. When the emergency travel document was issued last Wednesday, the Canadian embassy cut the corner off his passport and stamped it cancelled, saying he couldn’t hold both. Then he was told he needed an “out document,” which he’d never heard of. He decided to head to the airport to take his chances. The emergency travel document was rejected but his cut, cancelled passport was accepted.

“The Canadian government was little to no help in all this,” Becks said. “You’re really on your own. When you go somewhere, make sure you know every single rule because they’ll put you in jail for anything and take someone’s word for it (over yours).”

David Matas, a Winnipeg lawyer who specializes in international human rights issues, said “good luck” allowed Becks to leave with that passport.

He said the Emirates are run by the emirs, royal families governing the country.

“It’s much more whim than rule. I have no doubt that they had some suspicions which they thought were well-founded but there’s no way of testing that or contesting that. It’s just whatever they say goes,” Matas said. “There’s lots of countries like that. Once you get into trouble, it’s hard getting out of it because there’s no independent court system to tell the government what to do.”

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca