The dark side of Thailand (part 3)

Part 1 was about prostitution in Thailand. Part 2 on crime and hatred towards foreigners. After reading the comments I started to doubt myself. Did I not see it all right? Was it criticism without morality? Was I trapped in my own dark side? Mine "third dark side of Thailand” story is about the Thai legal system or what passes for it.

I am 70 years old and have been living alternately in Thailand and the Netherlands for five years now. Am happily married to my beautiful sweet Thai wife. In my working life I have been able to travel a lot. Seen many countries. In this way I also made many (business) friends with whom I still have regular contact. One of my (business) friends, who had heard that I spent a lot of time in Thailand, asked me to visit a business friend of his who was in a Thai prison. After some consideration, I decided to go with this.

Bjorn, let me call him that here, I visited in the notorious Bangkwang prison. Better known to Westerners as “Bangkok Hilton”. Bjorn was 38 years old, sentenced to 20 years in prison. Later commuted to 9 years in prison of which he had now served 6 years. In our first meeting I saw a man totally devastated, severely malnourished, looking around skittish and barely talkative. I promised to come see him again. Eventually I won his trust and he told me his story. Thailand bloggers read and shudder.

Bjorn saw the business opportunities in Asia at an early age. He settled in Hong Kong and served the many companies that wanted to trade with China. He married a Chinese woman and then settled in Shenzhen.

A relationship developed with Thai partners with whom he established a business in Bangkok Thailand. This company was engaged in import – export between Asia and Europe. This venture failed because Bjorn had found his Thai partners to be unreliable. After Bjorn and his Thai partners had been separated for more than a year and a half, one day a letter (in Thai) landed on the doormat of his home in Bangkok.

After someone translated this letter for him, the letter turned out to be from the police with the request to report to an unknown office somewhere in the center of Bangkok. He was unaware of any harm and went to the station at the specified date and time. When he arrived there, he was confronted with a report of fraud and fraud. The declaration was made by his Thai business partners at the time. He was confronted with a number of documents that would show that. He could now speak a word of Thai, but read, he was not that far yet. He didn't understand it.

The police pointed out to Bjorn that he could “buy off” this report. If he was willing to pay 1 million Thai Bath, they would make sure that the declaration was withdrawn. Two reasons that Bjorn could not or did not want to comply. First, he abhorred bribery, and second, he just didn't have the money. The police lowered the price to 500.000 Thai Bath. He also did not want to or could not comply with this.

Subsequently, Bjorn was arrested and transferred to another, unknown agency. There was no official hearing. He was kicked, beaten and beaten from all sides. Especially the kicks in the kidney area were intense. His request for a lawyer and contact with someone from the embassy was met with even more physical violence. The police insisted that the documents were genuine, and no matter what Bjorn claimed, there was no denying it. That was the beginning of the most hellish period in his life that had now lasted six years.

He ended up in Bombat prison. Hell on Earth. The living conditions there were disastrous. He had to live with more than 60 others, mostly foreign prisoners, on 32 square meters. You could never sleep at the same time. It smelled terrible, the air was unbearable.

Everything was cleaned once a month. Insecticides were sprayed over the detainees' heads. The only protection he had was a meager dirty blanket.

He experienced the regime in the Bombat prison as terrible. He described me as a concentration camp. You had to show respect to the guards by being on your knees all the time. If you did not do that or if you did too late, you were beaten with a baton with metal springs. The rice you received was highly contaminated. He lost 10 kilos in a week. After two weeks of stay, he ended up in the prison hospital with a fatal kidney failure.

Meanwhile, someone from the embassy had come to visit him. He arranged a Thai lawyer. He was assured on all sides that he would be released. After a year and a half he came before the Thai court. Without being asked anything, he was found guilty of fraud and swindling. The court sentenced him to 20 years in prison which was later commuted to 9 years which the Thai judge said was due to his full confession. But this is how Bjorn explained to me that he had never made a confession. All his lawyer told him was "be glad you didn't get a life sentence".

With 10 kilograms of chains on his legs, he was transferred to the infamous Bangkwang prison. It could have been worse there. Where there is room for 4.000 prisoners, there are now more than 10.000. Bjorn wanted to appeal, but whatever he did, it was impossible for him to contact the embassy and his lawyer. When they visited him, the term had expired.

Bjorn suffered 6 kidney attacks in the 44 years he has been incarcerated and was in prison hospital 14 times. He no longer counts on the chance that he will leave prison alive.

The moral of this third dark side story about Thailand? Bjorn is convinced that the Thai like to see foreigners convicted. He was sentenced without an interpreter and documents. As a foreigner you have no rights in Thailand.