By Stephanie Law, Vancouver Sun August 18, 2011 8:57 PM
Pavel Kulisek, 43, a former North Vancouver resident was recently released from a prison in Mexico. He was previously charged with cavorting with the kingpin of the Tijuana cartel, who he knew under a different alias. Included in the photo are his two daughters, all of whom were living in Mexico at the time of his arrest.
Photograph by: Handout, Kulisek family
A North Vancouver man who tried to kill himself during the three years he spent in a Mexican prison while his impoverished family lived in a garage, is finally home.
“I am happy to be back home with my family and grateful for all the generous support we have received,” Pavel Kulisek said in a press release after arriving at Vancouver International Airport on Thursday.
“I look forward to putting this terrible experience behind me and getting back to a normal life.”
Kulisek was arrested in Los Barriles in March 2008 when he was on an extended vacation there with his wife and two daughters.
Charged with drug trafficking and being a member of a criminal organization, he was imprisoned in a maximum-security prison in Guadalajara.
Kulisek, who maintained his innocence throughout his ordeal, was cleared of all charges after a judge found insufficient evidence against him. He was released Tuesday.
His wife Jirina Kuliskova insisted her husband was guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kulisek and his family drove to Mexico in February 2007 and settled in Los Barriles, where they later bought a house and enrolled their children in a local preschool.
“The main purpose was to spend time with our children,” wife Kuliskova wrote on a website supporting Kulisek (http://pavelkulisek.wordpress.com/about/).
“Especially, it was very important for Pavel as he has been working long hours and he felt that he did not spend sufficient time with our kids.”
While in Mexico, Kulisek met some new friends. One was a man who introduced himself as Carlos Herrera, but who turned out to be Gustavo Rivera Martinez, a major figure in the Tijuana drug trade, according to the press release.
On March 11, 2008, Kulisek was sitting at a hotdog stand with Herrera and his acquaintances when there was a police raid and all were arrested.
Kulisek’s trafficking charge was dropped in 2010, but the other charge of being a member of a crime organization couldn’t be heard until this year.
In desperation, Kulisek, 46, tried to hang himself in his 2.5-metre-by-four-metre cell on March 13, 2011. He was transferred to a psychiatric prison in Mexico City until he was finally cleared.
slaw@vancouversun.
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