KIMANI Ffriend’s towering 6-foot, 1-inch frame offered little or no comfort whatsoever when he was brought to jail for fatally hitting Serbian woman Nevena Dragutinovic, in 2012, with a car that he was driving.

He was taller than everybody there, but still he was reduced to a scared little man, backed into a corner, when those rusty jail doors slammed shut behind him. Even for seasoned criminals, this can be a frightening, nerve-wracking experience. Imagine what that does to a first-timer.

In a flash, his life had been transformed from the high-profile basketball star to a common hoodlum. Despite the measure of the crime a man is accused of in this wet, damp, dark and scary lock-up, every inmate holds equal standing. No special favours or privileges awaited Kimani Ffriend. Nor do they obtain for the prisoner next door.

For each of them, the unspoken greeting is: welcome to hell.

And for Ffriend, who was in custody for vehicular manslaughter, the opening of those jail doors ushered him into a passage of horror, and their closing, seemingly entombed him there.

The nightmare had only just begun.

“They took me to jail and put me into this holding cell in isolation for 48 hours. This jail was in one of the main police stations, called ‘November 29’. They took me there and I couldn’t have any visitors,” Ffriend recollected from the comfort of house arrest last week.

The fatal accident took place the Saturday morning of November 3, 2012 around 4:00 o’clock and the Jamaican would not see a magistrate until Monday.

The wait was only 48 hours — a short time in the full life of a human — but for Ffriend it was an eternity.

“I was there in isolation with no food, but I had water, and there was a light on and a camera in my face and just a piece of board to sleep on and I just had nightmares every time I closed my eyes.

“For me, those first 48 hours were the worst, because I had no contact with anyone, I didn’t know what was going on as no one came to see me, because no one was allowed to,” Ffriend noted, admitting he had never been so afraid in his 37 years.

Close to starving, left alone in a horrible cell, and having little shut-eye for two days, some measure of relief arrived early Monday morning. Even with eyes wide open, the Ffriend nightmare continued.

“The first time I spoke with anybody was when I went to court and saw my lawyers. The team I was playing for sent lawyers to help me. I had like five lawyers that Monday morning, but I only knew two of them.

“They then took me to a private room where they could explain everything to me. And when they told me the story of what I was charged for, and what the witnesses said, my jaws just dropped, because they told a completely different story from what my version was.”

At that moment, the former LA Clippers centre realised what he was up against in a country still struggling to shake its reputation of a hard-line past of being a part of the former Yugoslavia.

Ffriend knew very well that prisons in eastern Europe are among the most dangerous and uncomfortable in the world, and even at that early stage, he could only see the cold, wet, grey walls that would embrace him if he failed to beat this thing.

And when his lawyers told him what they had to go up against in court, the towering man’s heart sank.

“They said the girl didn’t cross the street where I said she crossed. They said I ran the traffic lights, I was speeding, I was drunk, although my alcohol level was 0.98 and they said I was 1.3. They just tried to crucify me in the papers,” he expressed.

After the police lock-up and his first appearance in court, Ffriend was denied bail on that Monday morning and was carted off to Central Belgrade Prison, the penitentiary for the nation’s most hardened criminals — from drug dealers to murderers.

“It was bad in the beginning, it wasn’t easy. I spent 10 months there. I have never been to jail before and this is my first experience, and for it to happen in a foreign country, as a black man, I just didn’t know what to think.

“But through it all I was calm, content, I didn’t know what was going to happen, but when I stepped into that jail that evening it was like a movie. They transported me in that little truck, had me shackled, got to the main entrance, they then asked me my name and other information. They did the strip search and searched every part of my body, and all of that was very hard for me seeing the life I had lived. And here I am just a regular guy, and at that moment I am asking myself if this is going to be the end for me.

“They then put me in a cell with eight guys, and I was the only black guy in a jail of about 2,000 inmates; some of them are hardened criminals. And everybody knew who I was as they all had the newspapers,” Ffriend said as he emotionally reconstructed his baptism to prison life.

He thought that he was going to be killed in that prison because he was a foreigner and the person responsible for killing, not only the girlfriend of popular folk singer Neven Zlvancevic, but one of their own.

It was a dread course for the Smokey Vale, Jamaica, native, as he looked into the mean, cold faces of those who held him. Could this be the end? he thought to himself.

But a gruff but comforting voice broke the deathly silence.

“The first thing the main guy in my cell said to me when the jailer closed the cell door was ‘don’t worry about anything, we are not going to hurt you, we know it was an accident, and you tried to help the girl’.”

Ffriend, after realising he had hit someone that morning, did not flee the scene, but tried to help the victim, and that act of compassion was priceless currency within those prison walls.

“One of the main things why I made it through my 10 months was because they saw that I tried to help the girl. These people are very patriotic, so when you kill one of them and being a foreigner, everybody was scared for me, and I was scared for myself as that was the only thing I was thinking about, to be honest,” said the former Ardenne High School student.

But those 10 months inside this tough prison were never going to be a Sunday evening stroll. Ffriend, even as he found allies, was never totally safe. He was living life on the edge in this penal hell every single day.

Ffriend, a former student of the University of Nebraska, said that there were a number of hairy situations on the inside, but in each case he was able to stand tall and prevail.

“There were three situations, which could have ended up with someone in the hospital or even worse. The second incident almost came to blows, where they had to part us. Another time I had to shove a guy because he was a racist as he made it clear he didn’t like black people and he was trying to tell me what to do,” said Ffriend, who also had a stint at the glamorous Miami Heat.

Being in the Belgrade prison for 10 months eventually saw him growing in rank and respect. But it was a status the basketballer didn’t want. All he needed was to get out. And fast.

“If you are the first person in a cell, technically you run that cell, but I didn’t want to be the leader. They were always moving people into my cell, and this guy came into the cell thinking that he was going to treat me however he feels to. So I had to let him know to cool it as I just wanted to get along

with him.

“I am not going to let anybody take my food as I am no punk and we got into a scuffle and the guard had to move him from the cell. The guards looked after me and would check to see if I am okay and if I had a problem. But, based on prison rules, even if I had a problem, I couldn’t say so.”

While in prison, Ffriend was forced into playing basketball. At first, he was reluctant out of of fear of getting hurt as he plans to resume his professional career when his tribulations are over.

“I played prison basketball just like what you see in the movies, where people are rough and are hitting you. But, yeah, I was staying in shape. In prison, I was pretty popular and that was a good and a bad thing. To people, I was interesting to them, because I was a foreigner and they wanted to talk to me.

“But I did play a lot of basketball while I was in prison and everybody wanted me on their team. We would play for Coca-Cola drinks or food because a lot of people don’t have money to eat, and I really didn’t want to play because I didn’t want to get hurt, but in prison you have to try and get along, so I played with the guys and helped them to win things so they could have stuff in their cells to eat,” he explained.

Growing up in Jamaica, Ffriend claims, had toughened him up and equipped him to evade the traps of prison life which many failed to avoid and paid the ultimate price.

“People have their rules in there, and there are guys who are the bosses, and I had to learn the ropes. But to be honest, living in Jamaica, and having a rough life did help me in prison,” he said.

Having received a three-year sentence for vehicular manslaughter, Ffriend is now serving the remainder of that time under house arrest.

“I have to give God the glory man, the situation that I am in has made it much easier, because I know what it is like to be in jail and it wasn’t pretty. The judge was merciful by allowing me to remain in house arrest while I wait for appellation. I guess she understood the whole situation and showed me compassion after taking everything into consideration,” he told the Sunday Observer.