Nightmare That Began in Ghana Jail Continues : Imprisoned Bird Importer Is Physically and Fiscally Drained by 6-Month Ordeal

A La Crescenta bird importer detained by officials in the African country of Ghana for 6 months returned home this month, 50 pounds thinner and financially ruined.

But the importer, Darrell Alexander, 46, said he is grateful to be free and able to see his wife again.

His wife, Florence, quit her job in July to work on her husband’s case full time, selling off their furniture, art and sculpture to pay the expenses of running a campaign to have him freed. Next week, the Alexanders plan to file for bankruptcy.

Alexander said he was victim of an extortion scheme. Arrested along with his assistant, Kirk Stubbs, on June 6, by Ghanaian authorities in the west African country’s capital city of Accra, he was held 4 months before being charged with a crime.

The Embassy of Ghana in Washington said no information was immediately available about his case.

Alexander’s cargo of 1,500 African gray parrots was confiscated and the cash in his pocket--more than $10,000--was taken by guards, he said. The only thing returned by authorities on his release, he said, is a gold ring shaped like the head of an eagle and two heavy gold-link chains he wears around his neck.

In the dining room of his now sparsely decorated home, Alexander presents a startling contrast to pictures of him taken before his arrest. Once a heavy man weighing more than 200 pounds, he is now almost gaunt. He chain-smokes and speaks numbly about his experience. After going barefoot for 6 months, he said it is hard to get used to wearing shoes.

Alexander ran into trouble in Ghana when he tried to export a shipment of birds to the United States. For 3 years, Alexander had operated Exotic Fauna International, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-sanctioned bird import and quarantine company in Montrose.

3rd Trip to Ghana

The trip to Ghana in June was his third, but it was the first time he had planned to take birds out of the country. He was to collect a shipment of parrots, which he planned to bring into the United States to pet stores, bird breeders and zoos.

Parrots--prized for their ability to mimic speech--are listed as a threatened species in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, a treaty signed by the United States. The treaty allows commercial trade in African grey parrots under permits issued by the countries of import and export.

U.S. Department of Agriculture officials confirmed that Alexander was carrying valid permits to import the birds to the United States. However, Ghanaian officials charged that his Ghanaian export permits had been forged. Alexander said he did not realize the papers were not genuine and had been hoodwinked by an intermediary.

The details of his arrest in Accra International Airport are sketchy.

In October, Alexander was convicted by a Ghanaian court of attempted smuggling, forgery and corruption of a public officer. He said the charges are spurious.

“I was as much a hostage as any hostage anywhere in the world,” Alexander said. “I was totally legitimate. I had all the papers. . . . You’d have to be nuts to try to smuggle 42 crates of screaming parrots out of Accra International Airport in broad daylight.”

Assistant Never Charged

Stubbs, who was ill, was held in a Ghanaian hospital and freed in August. He was never charged with a crime.

Alexander is one of more than 3,000 Americans who the U.S. State Department estimates are imprisoned abroad each year. Under international law, American embassies have no authority to investigate criminal cases brought against U.S. citizens in other countries unless they have reason to suspect that the Americans are being mistreated, State Department office of consular affairs spokeswoman Frances Jones said.

A U.S. consular officer visited Alexander at the detention annex of the Ghanaian Bureau of National Intelligence in Accra four times. The American diplomat reported to the State Department that Alexander was treated for chronic dysentery and complained of pains and weakness in his legs but that there was no indication he had been mistreated or tortured.

Jail conditions in Ghana have been termed “harsh” in travel advisories issued by the U.S. State Department since June. That month, Alton Sawyer, a Louisiana businessman, died in a Ghanaian hospital after being detained by government authorities without charges for 8 months.

On Dec. 6, Alexander was released by Ghanaian officials--dropped off in the middle of the street wearing only shorts and an old shirt, he said. He made his way to the American Embassy, he said, and wired his wife for money to come home.

Resting, Visiting Friends

Alexander flew into Los Angeles on Dec. 15. Since then he has been resting and visiting with friends. But most of his family lives in Florida, and he and his wife have no money to visit them.

Alexander said there is little chance he will go into the bird exporting business again. That would take start-up money he does not have. He said he might try marketing or going back to the painting he once did.

But those are next week’s concerns. Right now, he said, he is just trying to get used to sleeping in a bed again instead of on concrete.

“I’ve got a lot of things I have to think about now,” Alexander said. “I haven’t sat down and thought about what I’m going to with my life, for money , from this day forward. But I’m alive. I’m relatively healthy. You know, life starts over again. That’s basically it.”