Prisoner takes case to world's film screens

By Peter Bellamy

Billy Hayes, whose brutal experiences in a Turkish jail on a drug rap inspired the film, "Midnight Express," has but one unique complaint about the film.

It's that the film suggests he was nearly involved in a homosexual incident in the Turkish prison.

That," said the personable, articulate Hayes in an interview at the Bond Court Hotel, “is a cop out. I did have a homosexual relationship with a mutally consenting prisoner.

"It was only a desperate reaching out for love and affection and even the most normal of men cannot possibly know how he might react to it if he were removed from the company of women and forced to live under inhuman conditions.

"The fact of my homosexual experience is clearly referred to in my book, 'Midnight Express." However, I was heterosexual before I went to prison and happily resumed my heterosexual ways after I escaped."

In regard to Hayes' overwhelming preference for heterosexual relationships, there is a scene redolent with sex between him as played by Brad Davis and a girlfriend who visits him in prison.

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They are separated by a thick glass window, but the message is unmistakable and is one of the reasons why the film is rated "R" and barred to those under 17 unless accompanied by a parent.

Hayes has an explanation for the film's not detailing his cliff-hanging escape from Turkey into Greece by boat, bus, cab and foot across the heavily mined Turkish frontier.

"The escape was so dramatic, desperate and such a close thing that it seemed made to order for Hollywood," he said. "However, director-producer Alan Parker wanted to focus on the horrifying prison conditions.

There were more drugs available for sale in that prison than you could find on the streets of Istanbul. Turkey makes no distinction between soft and hard drugs. The penalty for smuggling them is worse than for murder.

"I was eventually sentenced to 30 years for trying to smuggle two kilos (4.4 pounds) of hashish, a soft drug, out of Turkey. The Turks claimed I had 200 kilos of hash strapped to my body.

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"That is ridiculous because 200 kilos of hash would weigh more than 800 pounds. I might not have been caught except that Turkish soldiers were carefully searching all passengers at Istanbul's airport looking for skyjackers."

Hayes will be pleased if "Midnight Express" persaudes just one young American not to try to smuggle drugs into or from a foreign country.

“It's stupid and not worth it for anything," he said. "The $200 worth of hash I tried to smuggle would only have sold for about $3,000 or $4,000 in the United States.

"What's that against losing your

youth and possibly your life in a dirty, stinking Turkish prison filled with killers, armed robbers, kidnapers, rapists and venal, brutal guards?

"I couldn't have survived had it not been for the money sent to me in prison by my family. My father, a personnel manager for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. took out a second mortgage on his home in North Babylon, Long Island, to help me.

"In all he spent about $25,000 trying to have my sentence reduced,. have me transferred to an American-jail, on fees to Turkish lawyers, for travel and my escape fund. The Turkish lawyers did nothing for

me.

"The final heart-breaker, which triggered my escape in October, 1975, came when I was resentenced to 30 years just 53 days before my original sentence of four years was to be completed.

"With royalties from my book and the film I've been able to pay off the second mortgage on my parents' home, send them on a California vacation and pay them back other monies."

To heighten the drama, “Midnight Express" has Hayes murder a sadistic prison guard named Hamid in self-defense just before his prison break.

"He was actually killed by a Turkish prisoner whom he'd tortured," Hayes said. "The day after his release, the prisoner walked into a restaurant and shot Hamid eight times. He returned to prisoner a .hero."

Although the Turkish government has protested the showing of "Midnight Express" in every city in the world where it has been shown, Hayes continued, it has not tried to have him extradited to Turkey.

"They protest the film on the grounds that it's exaggerated and is an attack on the Turkish people, which it certainly is not.

"I've recently appeared on several TV shows with the Turkish ambassador to the United States and about all he wants to talk about now are not the facts of my experience but about the differences between the film and the book."

Hayes admits the film has unceasing violence, but says "this is a violent world."

"But if it will inspire people to think about correcting ghastly prison conditions or dissaude them from trying to smuggle drugs it will have accomplished its mission. At least since my book, the United States and Turkey are now talking about an exchange of prisoners.

Since his escape, this Marquette University dropout has broken up with the girl who visited him in the Turkish prison and had lived with another girl for a year.

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"Now about all I want to do is to hide for a year," he said. "Then I'd like to pursue a writing or acting career."

"Midnight Express" is scheduled to open on screens here either on Nov. 4 or 11.

Billy Hayes, right, with actor Brad Davis who portrays him in the film "Midnight Express."