Gason ‘giving up hope’

Press, 21 August 1989, Page 6

Gason ‘giving up hope’

By

NIGEL MALTHUS

Mr Vince Gason, the Christchurch man detained in Somalia for the last six months, fears he could be back in jail at any time, “and I don’t think I’ll ever get out." Mr Gason, speaking from the Mogadishu hotel where he is under house arrest, said last evening that “things are about the grimmest they’ve been.” Facing charges over a failed Somali-Australian joint fishing venture of which he was the manager, Mr Gason still has no date, set for a court appearance but said that it could be any time. “If I go to court I’ll be back inside and I don’t think I’ll ever get out,” he said.

He said that he needed, first of all, some concrete information on the intentions of Mr John Woods, the Australian partner in the venture, which he could use in court.

“I’m not going to be able to hold off these people much longer. There’s virtually no money left over here, and John Woods won’t answer me.”

Mrs Ann Gason, who had last spoken with her husband about a week ago, said last evening that “he’s starting to give up now, which is unlike him.”

She had been contacted by the Australian television current affairs programme “60 Minutes,” which was doing a documentary on the affair. However, the show’s reporter andd crew had not been able to get into Somalia. Mr Gason said he had hoped “60 Minutes” might have “shaken some sense” into Mr Woods. “I need a telex I can show these people. Show them something’s happening.”

Mr Gason is being held responsible for the debts left behind when the joint venture vessels left Somali waters without permission. While he has appealed to Mr Woods to pay the debts, the Australian appears to have washed his hands of the affair.

Mr Gason said that when they learned of the Australian television interest, his Somali partner was able to go to court to get a delay in proceedings, but that time was now nearly up.

He said that the gunshot wound he suffered during riots on July 14 — when he was picked as a target apparently because he was white — was now healed but he was left with “a terrific amount of pain in the chest.”