Billy Hayes (writer)

William "Billy" Hayes (born April 3, 1947), originally from Long-Island, is an American writer, actor, film director and convicted drug smuggler. Hayes is best known for his autobiographical book Midnight Express about his experiences in and escape from a Turkish prison, after being convicted of smuggling hashish. Hayes was one of hundreds of US citizens in foreign jails serving drug charge sentences, following a drug-smuggling crackdown by foreign governments.^[2]

Billy Hayes was born on 3 April 1947, in New York City, the son of William Hayes Senior and Dorothy E (Dottie) Banks into a conservative family and received a private catholic education at Seton Hall High School, Patchogue, New York. During his senior year at Marquette University and a major in Journalism, Hayes decided to drop-out from college and focus on travelling, surfing, sky-diving and writing.^[3] Allowing him to cater for these activities, Hayes faked a psychiatric report in order to escape the Vietnam draft.^[4]

Whilst working part-time at an hospital and still a college student, a friend returned from Turkey with a small piece of hashish. Soon after, wandering the hospital’s halls during a break, Hayes observed a doctor applying a cast on a patient and this encounter sparked the idea of smuggling hashish into the country. Hayes recalls, “I thought ‘Hash. Cast. Istanbul. What a great idea!’ ”^[3]

Two week later, in April 1969, Hayes first visited Istanbul, having been encouraged by his friends to visit and taped two kilos of hashish to his leg and wrapping that appendage in plaster before clomping back to the U.S. This was a lucrative endeavour with Hayes pocketing USD $ 5,000 selling the drugs back home. Consequently, he decided to go back every six months or so, grew more confident as well as more careless with each successful crossing. “I seriously thought I was way too smart and good-looking to ever get arrested,” he admits.^[5]

Before his fourth flight home, after having passed customs, during a hijacking alert, Hayes was caught trying to smuggle four pounds (1.81 kg) of hashish out of Turkey on October 7, 1970. Hayes was originally sentenced to four years and two months in a Turkish prison. However, with his release date weeks away, he learned that his sentence had been revised and authorities had chosen to penalize him for smuggling and not possession which carried life imprisonment. As such, Hayes was sentenced on September 10, 1973, to 30 years in prison.^[6]

Intially, Hayes was imprisoned at Sağmalcılar prison in Istanbul^[7] after having spent one night in Sultanahmet Jail.^[8] Following an incident in prison, he was transferred in 1972 to Bakırköy Psychiatric Hospital, described as a 'lunatic asylum'. On several occasions, the United States Department of State pressured Turkey to transfer sentencing to the United States; however, Turkish foreign minister Melih Esenbel stated that the US was not in a position to dispute a sentence issued by a Turkish court.^[9]

Esenbel stated privately to officials that a release might be possible on humanitarian grounds, if Hayes' physical or mental health was deteriorating, but in a private consultation, Hayes stated to US diplomats that his experience at Bakırköy was highly traumatic, and he did not have confidence that the hospital would certify him for early release.^[9]

Hayes also commented that he felt attempts to win early release would jeopardize his prospects of being transferred to a more desirable half-open prison. On May 12, 1975, the Constitutional Court of Turkey declared amnesty for all drug offenses, which shortened Hayes' sentence from life to 30 years and he was transferred to İmralı prison on July 11, 1975.

Declassified telegrams from the State Department indicated that in discussions between the US embassy and Vahap Aşıroğlu, Turkish Director of Consular Affairs, the latter believed Hayes would probably be released from prison on parole in October 1978, which in practice meant that a local prosecutor would declare him persona non grata and expel him from the country.^[10]

Hayes escaped from İmralı on October 2, 1975, taking a rowboat at night to Bandirma, blending in with locals, and then heading westbound across the border to Greece. After over two weeks of detention and interrogation to determine whether he possessed any useful intelligence about Turkey's military, he was deported from Thessaloniki to Frankfurt on October 20; after interrogation by US authorities in Frankfurt, Hayes spent several days in Amsterdam, and then returned to the United States, arriving at Kennedy Airport over three weeks later on October 24, 1975.^[11]

Hayes wrote a book on his experiences, Midnight Express, which was later adapted into the 1978 film of the same name starring Brad Davis as Hayes. The film was directed by Alan Parker, with a screenplay by Oliver Stone. The film differs from Hayes' account in his book. Among the differences is a scene invented by Stone in which Hayes kills the prison guard Hamidou "the Bear", the main antagonist of the story. The prison guard was killed in 1973 by another person entirely, a recently released prisoner, whose family Hamidou had insulted while beating the prisoner; this took place years before Hayes' actual escape.

In 2010, in an episode of National Geographic Channel's Locked Up Abroad, titled "The Real Midnight Express",^[12] Hayes finally told his fully accurate version of being sent to the infamous Turkish prison in Sağmalcilar, eventually escaping from İmralı prison on an island in the Marmara Sea. Hayes has since written the sequels Midnight Return (Escaping Midnight Express) and The Midnight Express Letters - from a Turkish Prison, 1970-1975, the latter a collection of the original letters written home to family and friends during his imprisonment.

Hayes became active in the entertainment industry, specifically acting and writing. He appeared in the Charles Bronson 1987 film Assassination, as a hired killer.

One of Hayes' successes was writing and directing 2003's Southside (later released in the US as A Cock and Bull Story) which won numerous awards, including the 2002 L.A. Drama Critics' Circle award.^[13]

On June 30, 2010, the National Geographic television channel aired Locked Up Abroad: The Real Midnight Express.

Hayes travelled the world with his one-man show, Riding the Midnight Express with Billy Hayes, from its premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2013 until theaters closed in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.^[14]

Hayes presented the TV series "Greatest Prison Escapes" produced by Sky TV. ^[15]

During the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, Alinur Velidedeoğlu, a Turkish advertiser, met Hayes by chance and interviewed him on the film Midnight Express. Hayes expressed his disappointment with parts of the film adaptation, especially its portrayal of all Turks as bad, and his regret that Turkey's image was negatively affected by the film. Hayes also displayed affection for Turkey and the city of Istanbul. Although the Interpol warrant for him had by then been lifted, Hayes explained that while he wanted to return, he hesitated to do so, out of concern that many Turks might blame him for the negative publicity the movie had generated.^[16] The video was made available on YouTube.^[17][18]

The Turkish order banning him from the country was finally suspended and Hayes was allowed to return to Turkey on June 14, 2007, to attend the 2nd Istanbul Conference on Democracy and Global Security, organized by the Turkish National Police (TNP) and the Turkish Institute for Police Studies (TIPS). Hayes said it was important to him to return, in order to "apologize and 'make amends' – not for the book he wrote, but for the film, scripted by Oliver Stone, on which it was based. 'The film wasn't what Turkish people deserved,' Hayes told reporters at a press conference, explaining that it painted an unfairly bleak portrait of the country."^[16]

• List of fugitives from justice who disappeared

• Billy Hayes at IMDb
• "Riding the Midnight Express with Billy Hayes" website