JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Yisrael Meir Gotthold (24) was arrested about a month ago at the airport in Turkish Cyprus while in possession of live embryos. This week he was released from detention after the country’s Supreme Court accepted the evidence that he had acted legally, along with an apology. “I work as a courier, I have all the permits,” he now says in an exclusive interview on Israel’s channel 12. “I tried to explain, but nothing helped. They put me in jail under harsh conditions.”

For Gotthold, a 24-year-old Israeli citizen who has lived in the United States in recent years, the mission was supposed to be just another routine chapter in his unusual line of work. Gotthold is a licensed courier of live embryos, a critical link in the chain that enables couples around the world to fulfill their dream of parenthood through surrogacy. He was already on his way to Mexico, carrying a container with frozen embryos intended for a couple who were eagerly waiting for them. But at the airport in Turkish Cyprus, everything went wrong.

Due to sensitivity issues, containers with live embryos cannot pass through airport scanners, as such radiation could damage the cells and destroy the chance of life. But for local security personnel and police, the refusal to place the container in the scanner was immediately interpreted as something far more sinister. They were convinced they had caught an international smuggler.

“I tried to explain to them that they were wrong,” Gotthold recalls in an exclusive interview. “I showed them all the official documents, international permits proving everything was completely legal, and that I work with couples in the U.S. and Mexico. But nothing helped. They were locked in on their version of events. They confiscated the container, arrested me, and threw me into a detention cell.” Along with him, a doctor and the manager of a local fertility clinic in Nicosia were also arrested on suspicion of selling him the embryos. Gotthold, who still believed it was a bureaucratic misunderstanding that would be resolved within 24 hours, did not realize he was about to disappear into a nightmare that would last a full month.

The initial police detention was still tolerable, but the second stage of the ordeal, his transfer to the central prison of Turkish Cyprus, was an entirely different story. “That’s where it turned into something like ‘Midnight Express,’” Gotthold describes in a trembling voice. “The conditions were appalling. The food was terrible, and you couldn’t touch anything except fruits and vegetables. I experienced severe physical and mental abuse there.”

In the overcrowded, suffocating wing, where 14 inmates were packed into a single cell, the young Israeli found himself surrounded by detainees from Iran and Syria. “They imposed ‘punishments’ on me, they ostracized me, forbade me from smoking, running, or even praying. The war outside only made their treatment of me worse inside,” he says. “They openly threatened my life. They told me: ‘You are Israeli, you will stay here a long time,’ and made it clear they would order me killed if I broke their rules, while they themselves were allowed to do anything. I was terrified. I sat in a corner in fear, constantly praying to G-d to get me out of there. I didn’t sleep at night, afraid they would wake up and slaughter me.”