Kerry and Kay Danes

Huay Xai, Laos border crossing to Thailand

In 1994, Bjarne (Bernie) Jeppesen (Denmark) and his wife Julie Bruns (New Zealand) founded Gem Mining Lao PDR (GML) with Lao-born American, Somkhit Vilavong. They were granted a fifteen-year concession from the Lao government to mine at Huay Xai, a small city located in the north, which lies on the east of the Mekong just over the river border from Chiang Khong, Thailand near the Golden Triangle. In May 2000, Jeppesen and his wife fled Laos amidst charges of embezzlement. The Lao Government terminated GML's mining concession and then nationalised GML's sapphire mines. Jeppesen's caretakers, Kerry and Kay Danes, were arrested later the same year.[8]^{:para 8}

View of Vientiane from Patuxai

By the end of 2000, Kerry Danes, a soldier on extended leave from the Australian Army,[9] had been living for two years in the capital city Vientiane. According to American gem expert Richard W. Hughes,[10]^{:para 44–48} Danes was general manager of Lao Securicor (a subsidiary of Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited), a company that provided a security guard for the Vientiane office of the country's biggest sapphire mine, Gem Mining Lao (GML). Amidst allegations of missing gems, the registered owners and founders/executives of GML had been prohibited from leaving Laos. Security contractor Kerry Danes formally agreed to handle all affairs for GML prior to two of their founders fleeing Laos on 28 May 2000 to Bangkok, Thailand (and later Denmark). More than 450 Laotian employees of GML lost their jobs. The Lao government later convicted the fugitive GML pair (who never returned) in absentia for theft and misappropriations related to GML, and sentenced them to twenty years imprisonment. According to Bernie Jeppesen (GML), Danes' subsequent problem resulted from his association with Gem Mining Lao.[11]

Picture of a blue sapphire (for illustration purposes only)

Kerry Danes formally agreed to handle all affairs for GML when two of its founders, Jeppeson and Bruns, unlawfully fled Laos to Thailand on 28 May 2000. Danes also co-signed a letter from Jeppesen accusing members of the Lao government of corruption. Two months after the departure of Jeppeson and Bruns, quantities of Huay Sai sapphires allegedly appeared at Chanthaburi gem markets in Thailand.[10]^{:para 45–46} Danes was the managing director of Lao Securicor, a security company in charge of shipping gems for GML.[12]^{:para 12} In December 1999, the Lao government had ordered GML to suspend exports of all raw and semi-finished sapphire products.[11]

On 23 December 2000, Kerry Danes (aged 42) was seized in his Vientiane office by Lao secret police on suspicion of involvement in the theft of over $US6 million worth of sapphires and cash from a gem mine that he had been hired to secure. Under Lao law, suspects could be held for up to twelve months before charges were laid.[13] GML fugitive Bernie Jeppesen attributed Danes' problem to his association with Gem Mining Lao.[11]

Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge, border crossing near Vientiane

Danes' wife, Kay (aged 33), worked as an office manager for Lao Securicor security company, which contracted to GML. She tried to flee the country on foot the same day with two of their three children (the third child, aged 14, was not in Laos), but was detained with $US52,700 cash at the nearby Laos-Thailand border by the head of Lao secret police. Under Lao law, suspects could be held for up to twelve months before charges were laid. The children, Sahra (aged 11) and Nathan (aged 7), were released and with the aid of Australian consular staff, returned to Australia two days later on 25 December 2000 to stay with their grandparents in Brisbane. Kerry and Kay Danes were incarcerated in separate sections of mixed-sex Phonthong Prison, known as the 'Foreigners Prison', near Vientiane. On Christmas Day, Kay reportedly told her mother by mobile phone: "Mum, I think by tomorrow I'll be dead."[13][14]^{:para 10}

In May 2001, the Danes' Sydney-based lawyer said Kay's psychological condition was deteriorating, and she had developed a bad toothache in need of treatment. However, Kerry was physically and mentally strong. The case against the Danes centred on the transfer of a small fortune ($AUD200,000)[15] to a Lao bank account in Kay Danes' name. The transfer occurred about the time authorities alleged that finished and rough-cut sapphires worth millions of dollars disappeared from the office of a mining company that Danes provided security for.[16]^{:para 4} Soon after the Danes were detained, fugitive Bernie Jeppesen (GML) claimed that two dubious Australian characters (one notorious for money laundering and the other a disbarred lawyer) known as associates of murdered Melbourne lawyer/conman Max Green) were the main accusers against the Danes.[16]^{:para 7}

In June 2001, a Lao court convicted both Kerry and Kay Danes of embezzlement, tax evasion and destruction of evidence, sentenced each to seven years imprisonment, and ordered them to pay fines and compensation of $AUD1.1 million. The Australian government intervened on their behalf, and the Danes had served less than a total of ten months in prison when provisionally released on 6 October 2001. Not yet permitted to leave the country, the Danes decamped at the residence of Australian ambassador to Laos, Jonathan Thwaites.[10]^{:para 50} Laos authorities returned cash seized from Kay Danes and bank account funds of almost $200,000 ordered frozen at the time of the Danes' arrest. However, it was expected that such monies would be used to pay fines and compensation.[15]

Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer in 2003

In large part due to Laos's strong ties with Australia, coupled with the fact that Kerry Danes was still enlisted as a full-time non-commissioned officer in the Australian Defence Force, the pair received a formal presidential pardon on 6 November 2001, which absolved them of their convictions.[1] According to Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer, the Danes were advised they were free to leave Laos and welcome to return at any time if they wished.[17] The couple flew back to Australia, and Kerry Danes returned to military service.[18]

As a condition of release in October 2001, the Danes agreed to pay the June 2001 court-ordered $AUD1.1 million in fines and compensation in four equal instalments.[10]^{:para 51} When told that the Lao government was considering court action for non-payment in August 2002, Kay Danes argued on ABC Local Radio that the agreement was simply a diplomatic face-saving exercise, and she felt that the Australian government should intervene on their behalf again because she would be "executed" if forced to return to Laos. The Australian Foreign Minister's press secretary advised that the issue was a private legal matter between the Laos government and the Danes. Australia was obligated to pass on any court order issued in Laos, however no official documents had been received by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.[2]

In 2013, the producers of The Bodhi Tree film considered buying an option on Kay Danes' 2009 memoir Standing Ground: An Imprisoned Couple's Struggle for Justice Against a Communist Regime but later decided to base the film on two novels by British journalist Paul Conroy. The Bodhi Tree concentrates on the main story of lawyer Max Green, Australia's biggest legal fraudster, who embezzled millions of dollars and was later murdered in Cambodia. The smaller supporting story fictionalises the Danes in Laos.[19]

At the start of Chapter 1 of her third memoir Families Behind Bars: Stories of Injustice, Endurance and Hope (2008), Kay Danes writes that she was also a director of a bodyguard company based in Thailand at the time she was detained in Laos in 2000. She claims to have hired out former elite military and police officers. Danes also asserts that she had access to the King of Thailand's own personal bodyguards, and she would sometimes provide close protection services to employers of her husband's security company in Laos. Opposite page 96 of her fourth memoir Standing Ground: An Imprisoned Couple's Struggle for Justice Against a Communist Regime (2009), Danes captions a picture of herself at Siem Reap airport on a covert surveillance assignment in 2000. Separately, Kay Danes' mother writes on page 43 of Families Behind Bars that Kay called her in Australia on Christmas Day 2000 on Kerry Danes' mobile phone after secretly concealing it during her first two days of imprisonment in Laos. No information is provided with respect to who else Kay Danes may have contacted.

After the Australian government successfully negotiated a Lao presidential pardon in 2001 on their behalf, Kerry and Kay Danes returned to Australia with their monies intact. Kerry resumed Australian military service. Kay found herself "on a slippery slide of prescribed medications" for quite a few years.[22]^{:para 20} The Danes reportedly experienced and witnessed daily incidents of torture and ill-treatment by Laotian authorities.[23]^{:para 25} However, no description of ongoing physical injuries of their own can be found. In 2002, the Australian government declined to intervene when it was suggested that the Laos government was considering court action for non-payment of the $AUD1.1 million in fines and compensation that the Danes had agreed to pay by instalments when their presidential pardon was negotiated. Affected with post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic depression,[24]^{:para 4} Kay Danes released her first memoir Deliver Us From Evil: Bad Things Do Happen to Good People in 2002.

Danes was invited to speak the same year at the U.S. Congressional Forum on Laos in the United States House of Representatives and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Having found an appreciative audience, she testified on numerous occasions on Capitol Hill, and spoke at the National Press Club[25][26][27] about human rights violations and the plight of political and foreign prisoners held in Laos.[28][29]

The sense of injustice can be a powerful motivational condition, causing people to take action not just to defend themselves but also others who they perceive to be unfairly treated. Danes continued writing and two more memoirs were released in 2006 and 2008. Danes testified in 2009 and 2011 at special sessions of the U.S. Congressional Forum on Laos. Kay provided information about the Vientiane prison that she and husband Kerry were released from in 2001. Such information was considered in the context of the 2007 imprisonment of three missing Hmong-Americans[30] In 2009, Danes published her fourth Lao memoir Standing Ground: An Imprisoned Couple's Struggle for Justice Against a Communist Regime.

Kay Danes has published several memoirs based on her own personal experiences and observations. Over the years, she has often been promoted as an international author and speaker. The overarching theme of Danes' first four books (2002 - 2009), as indicated by the titles, is that of indignation. Her second memoir Nightmare in Laos : The True Story of a Woman Imprisoned in a Communist Gulag (2006) noticeably includes the word 'gulag' which, in English language use, commonly refers to any forced-labour camp in the Soviet Union. The dissolution of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War in 1991. Danes was incarcerated and pardoned some ten years later in a different part of the world. There are clearly anti-Laos and anti-communism sentiments that match American conservatism. A defensive attribution could be inferred. If Kerry and Kay Danes had served their full seven-year prison sentences, they would have been due for release in December 2007. The writing of Laos memoirs ended not long after the seventh anniversary of being pardoned. Kay Danes has consistently mentioned suffering from diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),[31]^{:para 7}[32][33] and this might explain mainstream media inconsistencies in basic facts such as the amount of time she was actually imprisoned and the associated circumstances.

• Danes, Kay (2002). Deliver Us From Evil : Bad Things Do Happen to Good People. North Melbourne, Victoria: Crown Content. ISBN 1-74095-025-9.
• Danes, Kay (2006). Nightmare in Laos : The True Story of a Woman Imprisoned in a Communist Gulag. Ireland: Maverick House Publishers. ISBN 978-1-905379-08-8.
• Danes, Kay (2008). Families Behind Bars: Stories of Injustice, Endurance and Hope. Australia: New Holland Publishers. ISBN 978-1-74110-676-3.
• Danes, Kay (2009). Standing Ground: An Imprisoned Couple's Struggle for Justice Against a Communist Regime. Australia: New Holland. ISBN 978-1-74110-757-9.
• Danes, Kay (2010). Beneath the Pale Blue Burqa : One Woman's Journey Through Taliban Strongholds. Australia: Big Sky Publishing. ISBN 978-1-92527-505-6.

In October / November 2008,[20] while Warrant Officer Kerry Danes was on a tour of duty with the Australian Army, his wife Kay took the opportunity to visit Afghanistan from Australia and travel in a Toyota Hiace van through war-torn countryside as part of a small group of five mixed-gender Rotarians under United States Marine Corps protection.[34] In 2009, Kay Danes was named Citizen of the Year in her hometown.[35] The following year, she published her fifth memoir Beneath the Pale Blue Burqa: One Woman's Journey Through Taliban Strongholds.[36] Chapter 1 names three women and two men on an organised two-week road trip with an Afghanistani driver. On page 38, Kay Danes refers to herself as an adrenaline junkie. In the Acknowledgements, Danes writes how honoured she is being able to risk both life and limb on this adventure.

In 2011, Kay Danes moved to Saudi Arabia when husband Kerry was deployed there with the Australian Defence Force. The following year, Kay was employed by the Australian government as an administrative assistant at its Embassy in Riyadh. In 2012, she was named State Finalist for Australian of the Year:[37] an award conferred on an Australian citizen by the National Australia Day Council, a not-for-profit Australian Government owned social enterprise.

Saudi Arabia is widely accused of having one of the worst human rights records in the world and remains one of the very few countries in the world not to accept the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights issues that have attracted strong criticism include the extremely disadvantaged position of women, capital punishment for homosexuality,[38] religious discrimination, the lack of religious freedom and the activities of the religious police. In 2004, the government approved the establishment of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), staffed by government employees, to monitor their implementation. To date, the activities of the NSHR have been limited and doubts remain over its neutrality and independence.[39]

In 2014, Kay Frances Danes was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for social justice and human rights work.[40] The same year, she left the workforce in Saudi Arabia to complete a Master of Human Rights degree online through Curtin University (WA), and to also take advantage of the travel opportunities of the Middle East. There appears to be no readily accessible details of Kay Danes' undergraduate studies.[41] Danes relocated to Australia in January 2015 and commenced research for a PhD (Law and Justice) two years later at Southern Cross University (SCU), City of Gold Coast, Queensland.[42] Her thesis "Exploring the evolving professionalisation of the Australian humanitarian sector" earned her a doctorate in 2020.[43]