Hamish Sands an enigma in life and death

Hamish Sands never needed much in the way of possessions, just some clothes and a car. Picture supplied

"Hey, unavailable at the moment, leave a message and I'll get back to you," says a male voice with a trace of a European accent.

The message is ordinary enough yet sums up the enigma of Hamish Sands, New Zealand explorer, wannabe soldier, who fled Havelock North years ago and whose biggest adventure turned out to be his last.

When he died last month, Sands had been away from home for a long time. Big chunks of his life are hard to trace but he always had a bad case of wanderlust and, it seems, was often as unavailable in life as he has become in death.

His 13-year-old son in Sweden apparently saw little of him over the years while his 16-year-old daughter in Australia saw nothing of him.

His adoptive family in New Zealand, who pleaded for his life by telling rebels he was psychologically disturbed, clammed up after he was found dead in an Ivory Coast prison, aged 36.

By all accounts they had not heard much of him in years. Why he went to the Ivory Coast remains debatable but not so long ago the West African nation was a tourist mecca, promoted as safe, with fantastic beaches and beautiful scenery.

A military coup five years ago put paid to that and civil war and bloodshed now rule. Only the hardiest, or, perhaps the foolhardy, would go there.

Rebels hold the northern part of the country and it was here that Sands was seized, from a bus on his way into Bouake, the rebel stronghold.

These rebels, notorious for torture, accused him of coming to their country to assassinate two of their leaders. They said he had with him incriminating evidence including a GPS satellite navigation system and a bullet-proof vest. They claimed he had a CV which listed skills such as sniper, parachutist and diver.

On hearing he was ill the rebels said they would not execute him, but he died anyway, of asphyxiation, in his cell.

His family's silence on what happened has annoyed some of his friends around the world. They want to clear his name as an assassin and as someone who had psychological problems.

There are conflicting views on whether he did have mental health issues. A former teacher from Havelock North says he was a lonely child and the worst pupil he taught, but will not say why.

The hyperactive child "got under your skin" but was not nasty, said Marten Heesterman, who taught Sands as an 11-year-old. Heesterman rules out ADHD and says problems stemmed from before he started school. He will not expand.

Another teacher who taught him at age 6, says he was a hard case - but so are a lot of kids. He did not stand out as worse than others, and she does not remember him being lonely.

In the early days of Sands' capture, a rescue mission was planned. It never got off the ground but John Halliday, the director of the Cambridge-based firm, Xtreme Group, which was involved in planning the rescue, says he knows for sure Sands had "real problems".

He was not an assassin, though, says Halliday.

"From everything I saw ... he was just, to be blunt, a nutcase in the wrong place at the wrong time."

It is the sort of comment that bewilders others who knew Sands well.

Rob Walker in Carterton is one. You sense a sadness from Walker. He and Sands were best mates in their teenage years and early 20s.

They flatted together, played rugby together, travelled Australia together, got drunk together and got into the odd pub fight "but who doesn't?" Just normal young men after a bit of fun and adventure.

Since Sands' death, Walker has pulled out photographs of the good old days. He looks at the pictures and confesses he has burst into tears more than once.

There is Hamish feeding baby camels in Australia. Here's one of them, fresh-faced, wearing hats, smiling for the camera, a couple of bottles of Southern Comfort in front of them. It was Sands' drink of choice then.

They look happy, except there were secrets in Sands' past, says Walker. The pair did not pry into each other's lives but Walker knew his friend had issues with his family.

"He just didn't want to talk about them, didn't want to bring it up. I don't know if it was anger, or something that happened back then."

His adoptive family in New Zealand does not want to talk. His sister, Catherine Sands Wearing, says they are in mourning.

Walker is not sure how long it has been since he last saw his mate but it must be a good decade.

The loyalty has not faded. Sands certainly had no mental health problems that Walker knew of. It was just that he was "out there".

"He wanted to do stuff. He didn't like to stay in one place, he just wanted to go. The world was his oyster, so to speak."

In Australia they worked as chippies and labourers. When they had earned enough money, they would travel around.

Sands would wear his Army pants and boots and on their road trips they would earn good money shooting rabbits and wild dogs for farmers on the New South Wales/Victoria border.

Neither liked cities much and they would camp out on the river banks a couple of weeks at a time: "It was awesome."

Walker already knew how to shoot and Sands became a crack shot over there. The "outdoor man" never needed much in the way of possessions, just some clothes and a car.

But he also had a briefcase with "papers" in it. Walker says he was brainy and used to play the stockmarket.

He wonders out loud if Sands could have gone to the Ivory Coast to kill someone.

"I don't know. What do you think? He didn't have any guns, did he?

"I 'spose, even me. You know, if I had nothing and some Government says 'look I'll give you $50,000 if you pop over there and knock these couple of rebels off' ... phew. It's a lot of money." But then, he says, it's all speculation.

In the 1980s Sands also met a girl in Australia. They were both about 17. She was a New Zealander but lives in Australia and does not want her name used for the sake of their daughter.

The daughter is an angry young woman at the moment, says the mother. They did not come back to New Zealand for a memorial service for the father the girl has not seen since she was 10 months old.

Now she is nearly 17. Initially, there was a little bit of contact, the occasional Christmas card, telephone call or the odd letter. Then nothing, for the past eight years.

Back when the mother lived with Sands in Melbourne, he was a "good guy", she says.

They met at a sandwich bar. She worked there and he would come in, wearing overalls, and tell her they made the best sandwiches. After nine weeks, he asked her out.

She fell for him. He was outgoing and boisterous, a good-looking guy out for an adventure, always cracking jokes.

"Yeah, he was a bit of a charmer."

They would work hard then travel. Sands loved sport, was popular and had "heaps" of friends. He was no rebel, she says, just an average kid.

But, she, too, talks of him having issues with his upbringing. He had gone to Australia at the age of 13. She thinks he ran away after the death of his adoptive father, whom he adored.

She recalls going with him once to visit his adoptive mother after their child was born, but said she was not made welcome by the strict Christian woman.

Sands, she says, was a bit of a lost soul, always searching for love.

She was angry at first when psychological problems were brought up but says it made sense when his sister told her the comments were said to try to save him.

If the family had portrayed him as a brainy guy who knew what he was doing, it would have been worse for him.

She never saw any sign of mental illness - unless you count the time he joined the French Foreign Legion.

It was a strange thing to do. By this time, after about four happy enough years together, the couple had split. Sands had met a Swedish girl in Australia, and left the mother and daughter.

She fetches a letter sent from France in 1990 and struggles to read Sands' writing.

"Sorry I haven't written," she reads, "but I've been locked up in prison for 25 days for disobeying an order and, believe you me, prison in the legion is no fun. They kicked the shit out of me a few times and all you do is work, work, work."

He writes he has a photograph of his daughter and says she is "always with me in the photo and always in my heart".

After Sands died, the Foreign Legion confirmed he had joined in 1989 but said he was let go 10 months later, for heavy drinking and incompatibility with the life of a soldier.

It's odd, she thinks. In all the time she knew him, he was never a heavy drinker.

Why he went to the Ivory Coast she has no idea, but there are indications he was aware of the danger.

Sands' 13-year-old son in Sweden has made contact with the family in Australia.

"Apparently he knew that Hamish was going to Africa and he told his son that if anything was to happen to him that he could collect all his belongings. [The boy] asked him not to go."

She sighs. Yes, she loved him once, she says. Sands was her first love and the path he took saddens and angers her. She pauses and says maybe he did have a death wish.

Sands' sister has told her what the autopsy into his death said. It was a sad end.

"They couldn't basically say whether he was hung, a bag was over his head, he was strangled. Basically, the autopsy showed that it was inconclusive but he died of asphyxiation."

In the missing years, while his children were growing up, Sands travelled to exotic locations, becoming a skilled yachtsman and diving instructor.

He lived in Thailand and Egypt and spent a year diving in Sudan, another nation racked by civil war.

Diving in the Red Sea around Sudan is among the best in the world. It makes the hardiest divers drool, including a father and son from Perth, Australia.

Michael Archer and his son met Sands in 2002 for a week's diving on Sands' boat. It was one of those times where you don't know someone for long but you get to know them well.

They went to remote areas, to amazing reefs and dove in wrecks. They saw sharks galore, millions of fish. They did big wall dives through beautiful colours and crystal waters.

It was "sensational", says Archer. The wiry and tanned Sands loved this life but he sometimes pushed the limits too far.

He never put the father and son at risk, "nothing more than we wanted to do ourselves", but he would and did put himself at risk, says Archer.

"Like diving in the wreck, which was diving alone into a wreck and almost drowning because he'd run out of air and could not get out."

There were other stories too, but they are ones Archer will not tell.

Sands was "bigger than life" and would spin a good yarn. They never knew what to believe but it did not matter because he had a heart of gold.

To Archer it makes sense that the Foreign Legion kicked Sands out: "He'd be very hard to keep under control. Discipline probably was not his greatest, um, ability."

Pole Marek Rzewuski is suffering over the death of his friend. The pair sailed oceans together and travelled to lands few tourists went. They were great buddies. Rzewuski used to call him "Kiwi".

Kiwi spoke his mind. A lot of people loved him for this but others did not.

"There are so many stories I should tell you," says Rzewuski. "I and Hamish, we spend so long time together sailing across many seas and Atlantic Ocean. Just he, me and the sea."

Rzewuski was with Sands in Sudan and was planning to meet him in Ivory Coast.

Sands had always wanted to go to "undiscovered" countries.

This was why he went to the Ivory Coast, not because he was a mercenary.

The Sands he knew was keenly interested in politics and although he never finished school he was "educated by life".

"He was very worry about world environment, rising temperature, especially that he was diving. He saw many changes in reef being diving same places every year.

"He was always against war, like in Iraq or Afghanistan. He was saying that war is not a way out."

Sands had a new job to go back to in Poland, running some stables, and planned to be in Africa only a couple of months. He wanted to see what was going on in Ivory Coast with his own eyes.

He wrote to Rzewuski and told him what a beautiful country it was, and how he loved the people: "He said this country's best in Africa."

Then there was another letter. It was dated March 14 but arrived a month later.

Two days after that, Rzewuski heard his friend was dead.

The letter told how Sands was in prison but said he was okay and that he would survive. It asked Rzewuski to tell friends about his situation.

Rzewuski thinks what happened to Sands was all a dreadful mistake. The rebels had accused him of being a captain in the Army, but Rzewuski thinks if Sands said he was a captain he would have meant of a sailing boat because this is what they used to call him. The GPS they accused him of having is commonly used in sailing and diving.

Rzewuski does not understand the silence over Sands' death.

"Because he was killed there and why? We shouldn't now shut up, we should scream now that something is wrong.

"I would like to do everything for Hamish. I couldn't help him when he was alive and now we have to fight for his good name ...

"He was not a gangster, he was a very good-hearted person."

* A United Nations inquiry into his death is understood to have been completed but New Zealand officials are yet to see it. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman says inquiry details are likely to remain private.