Canadian Singer Home After Time in a Chinese Prison
Here’s a hint: do NOT carry antique bullets in your luggage while passing through customs at Shanghai Airport.
That’s the mistake Grant Cassell, singer for Vancouver’s Behind Sapphire, made. And of all days, he made it on Sunday, September 11. And he was wearing military-style clothing. And carrying everything not in a suitcase, but a duffel bag.
The Chinese border people didn’t care the vintage bullets were from World War 1. All they knew is that this guy was attempting to carry illegal munitions into the People’s Republic.
They interrogated him for fifteen hours before tossing him into a 12 x 14 foot cell with ten other inmates, including a guy who gutted his sister, brother-in-law and their children with a knife.
Potty breaks? That hole in the floor in the corner. Sleeping arrangements? You don’t want to know. Food? Rice, bread and water.
The good news is that Grant is now home, safe and sound, in Vancouver.
More on the story here and here.
