Authors: Colin Martin
12
My first few years in Chonburi prison were a nightmare. I was beaten and subjected to utter degradation on a daily basis. I had never felt so low. My Thai wife had stolen my bail money and I could not afford to hire another solicitor.
But as I waited for my trial to conclude formally and for my sentence to be given, my health began to deteriorate. This happened gradually but the effects remain with me to this day.
The rooms we slept in were basically big cages. They had open walls with bars all around.
Parts were covered with mosquito mesh, but other parts weren’t.
This was tolerable in the summer, but once the monsoon season came it was a nightmare. The wind and rain beat in mercilessly. A few of us once tried putting up blankets against the bars, but the guards made us take them down immediately. They said they needed to be able to have a clear view on all sides.
In Chonburi, I slept in a room which was designed to hold 20 prisoners, but actually held many more, sleeping sardine-style head to toe.
There wasn’t room to fart, never mind sleep. There were no beds – if there were, they could never squeeze the same number of prisoners into a room.
Nobody on the outside really thinks that a prisoner ever goes hungry, especially in this day and age where most prisons around the world serve what could be considered gourmet food. But there was nothing gourmet about the food in a Thai prison. In fact, it didn’t even resemble food I’d ever eaten.
We were given what is called
khao dang
, the cheapest grade of rice available. It wasn’t washed – just cooked the way it arrived from the farms. In Chonburi, the rice was cooked in huge vats which must never have been cleaned either because, by the time it got to us, it stank.
The fish soup they served was so full of peppers and spices that that’s all you’d taste anyway, but God only knows what else was in it.
I was never brave enough to eat the shit they served as food. Anything that smelt that bad couldn’t be good for you. I couldn’t eat it even if I wanted to.
In fact, the only poor buggers who did eat it were those that didn’t have any family or friends outside to visit them or give them a little money.
Most of us bought food from the prison shop. The shop sold white rice, omelettes, chicken, bread and some other things. This was prepared by the guards’ wives, mistresses or other family members – but you still got hair, flies, mosquitoes and a few other surprises inside anything you ate. The guards were allowed to sell food to the value of $75 each per day, which meant that in this way, they could make ten times their salaries.
I often went without food for days because I didn’t have the money to buy it and I couldn’t force myself to eat the shit they provided, but nobody gave a damn. In fact, the prison only prepared food for around 200 people because it was only the very poorest prisoners that would eat it. There was money allotted by the government for food for the whole prison population – but, of course, the guards stole it.
The bad diet I was forced to accept played havoc with my digestive system. I began to lose weight upon entering prison, but I slowly began to lose my health entirely. The fact that there was no medical supervision or care available only quickened my deterioration.
At Chonburi, there was no doctor, just a medic. There was no proper clinic, and no dentist.
My teeth were the first to go. After a few years of the unhealthy atmosphere and awful diet, they got very bad. A dentist did visit Chonburi about once a year. By the time he was due, I was in real pain, so I put my name down to see him.
I went to see him together with another foreigner, Amir. Altogether there were about 500 prisoners going to the dentist that day.
We all had to squat and wait in the yard. Finally, about 12 people arrived in white coats. I thought they looked like students, and my impression turned out to be right.
They started to call out names and people would step up to be treated. But there was no type of examination and no real treatment at all. It soon became obvious that they were only there for one thing – to pull teeth.
The first three or four students gave Novocaine injections. The inmates were then told to stand in line for other students to pull their teeth out.
I looked on in horror. I remember that the students all had rubber gloves and face masks, but there was no real consideration for hygiene. They didn’t bring 500 separate syringes. Instead they just dipped the same ones into an alcohol solution and re-used them. It was the same with the teeth pliers.
I looked at the way they operated in disgust. I knew there was no way the pliers could be sterile. I also noticed that the students never once changed their rubber gloves. They were pulling teeth at the rate of one every 30 seconds or thereabouts. When my turn came I refused to go near them and so did Amir.
‘Fuck that shit,’ I said to him. We walked quickly away, past the students. There was blood everywhere, and bits of teeth were scattered across the yard floor like fallen confetti.
Over the next few months I made dozens of requests to see a proper dentist. They wouldn’t let me go out of the prison, even though there was a hospital directly in front of it and I’d only have to walk across the road. They said I was a potential escape risk.
Eventually, probably just so that I’d shut up, the building chief agreed to ask one of the government hospitals to send a dentist.
After looking at my teeth, this dentist said I’d have to have 18 of them removed and I’d have to visit him at the hospital. He said he couldn’t pull that many teeth where we were.
When the day came for me to go to the hospital, there was no prison van or car. After all the fuss about security and escape risks and the need for me to be shackled, I went to hospital on the back of a motorcycle.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t that they’d decided to trust me after all. I still had to wear the chains, so I just threw my leg across the saddle. But it wouldn’t have been hard to throttle the guard driving the motorbike and escape. Another prisoner might just have done just that.
I went to the hospital on the back of that motorcycle about ten times. A few times we used one of the guards’ pick-ups with me sitting in the back, and we took a taxi a couple of times. I even walked to the hospital twice because there was no transport available. It’s a good 30-minute walk to the nearest government hospital, and in 4 kg of shackles that’s no joke.
Of course, I had to pay for my own dentures, and my own treatment. The prison should have provided the lot, but they didn’t.
* * *
Government regulations in Thailand and the law are actually fairly sound, but the problem is that the Thais never follow them. If they did, life for prisoners would be a lot easier. But they thwart, pervert or ignore the law at every turn.
For example, according to Thai and international law, remand prisoners and convicted prisoners should be segregated. But, in practice, once you enter that gate, you’re a convict. There was no inequality in there; they treated everyone like shit.
The only difference was that when a prisoner was convicted, the shackles came off.
Thai law says that ‘methods of restraint are never to be used as a form of punishment.’ But I’d seen some men with three sets of shackles on their ankles for being caught gambling or using drugs. I saw others with bloody anchor chains on their legs, so heavy that they’d have to half carry, half drag the things around.
But one of the favourites was ‘the daisy chain’ – usually for those caught in the act of homosexuality or similar, but also for any group caught breaking the rules together. A daisy chain was where all involved – three, five, ten or even more – were all shackled together ankle to ankle.
If one needed to piss, they’d all go; if one needed to shit, they’d all go. They’d have to eat, sleep and shower together – which was bloody difficult, not to mention embarrassing.
The fact that it was illegal to bring a prisoner in front of a court shackled didn’t bother these people either. Many people often say to me that judges are not biased when they see shackles. But I disagree. How can there be a presumption of innocence when prisoners are forced to stand there in chains?
Unlike me, most prisoners didn’t know what the law was or what their rights were, and nobody told them.
At one point, I managed to get a copy of the Thai Penitentiary Act from a lawyer. He knew well what the situation inside the prison was but, like all the lawyers I hired, he insisted it wouldn’t be good for his career to complain to a judge about it. But I studied the documents he gave me.
As the months passed and I heard nothing about my trial, I gradually came to accept that I would be found guilty. That gave me the courage to start challenging the system from inside. And I became a big problem for the prison. I refused, or should I say, tried to refuse, to be treated like an animal.
After years of being shackled even though I hadn’t been convicted of any crime, myself and a Japanese friend, Kim, wrote to Amnesty International and various other human rights groups.
I wrote letters asking them to help have our shackles removed for once and for all.
Our letters were heard and Amnesty advised us to file a case in court to try and get the shackles off.
Word spread quickly and the guards started giving Kim and me extra hassle. The commandos came and told me that if I talked to anybody about what happened inside the prison again, I’d be sorry. They said that when it was over, we’d pay for causing trouble.
Nobody wanted to be seen sitting with us. Everybody was afraid that when the shit hit the fan, they’d also get screwed. It was a very dangerous time but we took the case.
With Amnesty involved, it was listed for hearing in the space of a few months.
The judge couldn’t argue with our reasoning and with some human rights lawyers present in court, he was afraid simply to dismiss our case. In the end, he ordered that our shackles be removed immediately. In fact, he ordered all shackles to be removed.
I’d worn shackles for two years, but I knew men who’d worn them for eight. The judgement forced the prison chief to remove shackles from 600 men.
Kim and I were treated like heroes for a day. Even the guards admitted that we had balls. But they now considered us to be troublemakers. One commando went as far as threatening to kill me.
‘Oh you think you’re special?’ he said. ‘This is Thailand. You die very easy here.’
It took me a while to realise that at the end of the day, what he said was true, but that didn’t deter me.
The success of the case encouraged me to write to every prisoner welfare group in Europe and newspapers in Britain and Ireland. I didn’t just ask them to highlight my case; I demanded action.
I started writing letters every day.
One of the people I wrote to was John Mulcahy, the editor of
Phoenix
magazine in Ireland. I remember writing out my entire story for John and thinking that he would never believe a word of it because it was too implausible. But I was wrong.
He did receive the letter and replied. I was shocked. That letter was the first communication that I’d received from anyone in Ireland other than my family. It’s hard for me to describe the lifeline this letter represented.
John Mulcahy was entirely non-judgemental and offered to help. As I had been let down so often, I refused to get my spirits up; no one with the exception of Amnesty had done anything practical to assist me.
John proved me wrong.
Phoenix
brought my case to the attention of the Irish public. The publicity immediately produced results.
People started writing to me and sending me parcels of books, medicines and toiletries.
I had long stopped believing in human kindness, but Mulcahy’s intervention restored my spirit. The readers of
Phoenix
donated money to an appeal fund which John set up and administered. I can’t even begin to explain how this changed my fortunes. Letters arrived from well-wishers every week.
I felt empowered for the first time since I’d been arrested. The letters lifted my spirits; in fact, they saved me. More than anything else, the letters broke the routine. I started to look forward to tomorrow because it usually brought some good news, or an unexpected parcel or letter.
I think I received more post than anyone else.
But in reality it didn’t influence my case. I was still faced with the task of seeking justice from what was surely the most corrupt justice system in the world.
13
The mere mention of my trial either sent me into a rage or caused me just to laugh.
It’s not hard to see why. The next three or four times I was taken to court, either the prosecutor didn’t turn up, or he said he hadn’t called a witness for that day.
This repeatedly happened over the course of about nine months. Despite the fact that Thai law states that hearing dates should be no more than 30 days apart, I was only taken to court every three months.
I complained to my appointed lawyer about all the time-wasting antics of the prosecutor.
‘The prosecutor is very busy and has many cases,’ he said, ‘but he could probably find time to come to court and get on with your case, if you’re willing to pay him. 100,000 baht should be enough.’
I knew from other men in Chonburi prison that if you paid the prosecutor he could speed up your court dates. I knew some men who’d paid and went to court on average every two weeks. This wasn’t considered corruption, because the prosecutor didn’t promise to let you off easily. He would only agree to turn up and get on with it. So you actually paid him to prosecute you – but to do it quickly.
One man I knew had been on trial for eight years. The prosecutor listed almost 200 witnesses. Eventually the man paid the prosecutor, who immediately cancelled 20 witnesses. He paid again and the prosecutor cancelled 20 more. And so on.
Getting a quick trial made a great difference. The king of Thailand gave an amnesty every four years on average, by which sentences were commuted. Prisoners like me were only eligible to benefit from an amnesty once we’d been sentenced. But we never knew exactly when the king was going to grant one.
One prisoner I knew was arrested in 1991. There was an amnesty that year but he missed it. There were further amnesties in 1993, 1995 and again in 1999. But he missed them all. If his case had been finished at the time, his 100-year sentence would now be down to around four years. Therefore, bribing a prosecutor to prosecute quickly wasn’t as stupid as it sounded.
I didn’t have the money and, even if I did, I probably still wouldn’t have paid the prosecutor. With O’Connor dead, I knew he had no eyewitnesses. Yet he had refused to close the case, and he’d refused to accept O’Connor’s death certificate.
In the end, I decided to write and complain to the president of Chonburi Court. I wrote that the prosecutor had kept me in prison for years, insisting on pursuing a case he couldn’t win. I said the prosecutor had no evidence and no witnesses and, so far, had proved nothing.
At the time, it seemed like a good idea. As far as I was concerned, the prosecutor was just playing with my life, and now was asking for money to come to court and do his job.
I asked the president of the court to instruct the prosecutor to get on with my case. If he had any real evidence or witnesses, I said he should bring them to court. If not, let me go.
The next time I went to court, the prosecutor came over to me.
‘Why are you trying to make problems for me?’ he asked. ‘I’m trying to help you!’
When the judge arrived, he told me that if in future I had any problems I could bring them to his attention. He said there was no need to write to the president of the court.
My lawyer at the time said it had been a good idea, but not to do it again. If I did, I’d piss off the judge and the prosecutor.
At this hearing, the prosecutor then introduced the confession the police had forced me to sign. He didn’t read it out in court; he didn’t ask me if the signature on it was mine. He simply handed it to the judge and said that the accused had confessed to everything at the police station.
As usual, my lawyer just sat there and never opened his mouth or objected. I would have objected myself but the hearing lasted just long enough for the prosecutor to hand the judge the confession. Then the judge was up and out the door with the prosecutor right behind him.
I was sent back to prison.
Six weeks later I was back in court for more of the same. This time, the prosecutor called a police officer. He testified that with the police’s amazing powers of deduction they had discovered a murder, caught the murderer, found the murder weapon and secured a confession – all in the space of less than two hours.
The case ended and I was sent back to Chonburi.
I was told weeks later that three other policemen testified in a Bangkok court, which I wasn’t allowed to attend. My lawyer went though. He told me that nothing of importance was said.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. So I worried.
All that remained now was for the prosecutor to make his closing arguments and then the defence would have its turn.
It had taken almost three years to call seven witnesses, and I’d been to court 30 times because witnesses or the prosecutor failed to turn up. On average, most of those hearings only lasted about ten minutes. So in three years, I only had five hours of court time.
As you would expect, there were no closing arguments at each trial. The prosecutor simply stood up, walked over to the judge and handed him O’Connor’s statement.
He never read any of it out or showed it to anyone. Once the judge had accepted it, the prosecutor said, ‘Oh, and this witness is dead now, Your Honour.’
By this stage, O’Connor had been dead for more than two years and was supposed to have been cancelled as a witness. Now I understood why the prosecutor wouldn’t accept the death certificate.
If he didn’t admit O’Connor was dead, he could still try to use the man’s statement.
When I saw the judge take it from the prosecutor, I was on my feet in seconds demanding that it was illegal to use O’Connor’s statement. Nobody could verify the signature. The police could have written it. The prosecutor could have written it for all I knew. He was certainly devious enough.
While I was arguing with my lawyer, the judge and the prosecutor got up and left.
‘You should not make a scene in the courtroom!’ the lawyer shouted at me. ‘It makes it look like you have no manners and no respect for the judge.’
‘Being on trial is one thing,’ I roared back, ‘but having to sit here and get fucked is something else!’
Eventually he said he would talk to the judge just to keep me happy, but the judge would already know that O’Connor’s alleged statement couldn’t be accepted.
It didn’t look that way to me. The judge had accepted it without a word, but there wasn’t much I could do now.
* * *
After years of waiting, the day finally arrived for me to testify. I was looking forward to clearing my name. I actually allowed myself to start believing that I would be freed.
I wasn’t looking forward to the prosecutor’s cross-examination, because I knew he’d try his best to trick me. Some questions you can’t answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
But I needn’t have worried. The prosecutor didn’t turn up. I couldn’t believe it. The prosecutor had tried everything to get me convicted, yet now that he had a chance to really grill me, he didn’t have a single question that he wanted to ask. How could that be possible?
My lawyer told me not to worry. He said it was normal in Thailand.
The judge didn’t seem to think it was strange either. He entered the court, sat down as usual, and opened the hearing without batting an eyelid.
There was no translator in court. This had never really been a problem for them before because any witnesses that had been called were Thai and the judge could understand them.
But now I had to testify and I couldn’t speak much Thai. Luckily there was a Thai journalist in court who spoke English. She was eventually asked to translate.
My lawyer asked me to explain what had happened – the original theft, the failure of the police to catch O’Connor, the meeting, how O’Connor had attacked me, and how he had agreed to return the money to me in Bangkok.
The next question was, ‘What happened in Bangkok?’
My lawyer skipped the whole car journey with Holdsworth and O’Connor. He didn’t mention any fighting or any murder – which was strange, considering that’s what I’d come to testify about.
I proceeded to explain how the police had come to O’Connor’s apartment and arrested me for trespassing; how I’d explained things and how O’Connor had been arrested instead; how I went willingly with the police to charge O’Connor officially; and how, 14 hours after being arrested, O’Connor had suddenly claimed that I’d killed his bodyguard.
I explained how I’d been beaten and tortured by the Bangkok tourist police until I agreed to sign a statement they had prepared.
The judge just sat there, smiling occasionally but looking bored. He must have heard stories like mine every day. It was normal for the police to beat and torture suspects. I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last.
I was never asked whether I’d killed Holdsworth. I was never even asked if I knew him. I was ready to testify how I’d been forced to defend myself against a man attacking me with a knife, but I was never asked.
I confronted my lawyer about this during the lunch break.
‘The law is about proof,’ he said. ‘The prosecutor couldn’t even put you at the crime scene. If you testified to being there and said you were involved in a fight, then you’d be doing the prosecutor’s job for him. The prosecutor didn’t bother to turn up because he knows he doesn’t have a case. Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll win the case 100 per cent.’
I wanted to call some witnesses on my own behalf – my wife’s brothers who were there when I was attacked, a young supervisor whom I’d called from the police station and some character witnesses. But my lawyer said the young supervisor would be enough.
This witness was called and he testified to my phoning him to tell him what had happened and that I wouldn’t be at work the next day. Because no prosecutor came, the judge did the cross-examining but he didn’t have many questions to ask.
At that my trial closed. I was told that I would be called back to the court within 45 days to receive the verdict. I expected to be free then.
* * *
That was it. In 45 days I would be going home. It was a long 45 days back inside Chonburi Prison, but that thought kept my spirits high.
When the day came, I was taken to court. I remember feeling excited but also nervous as hell.
My mind was racing. Worst case scenario – if I was found guilty, what would they give me? The most that they could possibly convict me on would be manslaughter, and it was self-defence. Surely those were mitigating circumstances. They couldn’t give me more than a few years, could they? They couldn’t give me more than I’d already served.
When I arrived in the courtroom, it was empty. No lawyer, no prosecutor and no police.
Nobody – just me, a journalist, and a guard.
A judge I’d never seen before walked in, sat down, saw I was a foreigner and said something in Thai. The journalist later told me what it had been.
‘Oh, he’s a foreigner,’ the judge had said. ‘He won’t understand Thai, so there’s no need to explain.’
Then, in English, he said, ‘Found guilty . . . 20 years sentence, reduced by one third because the accused accepted the charge in the police station . . . Now remaining 13 years and four months . . . You can go.’
At that, the judge got up, turned on his heel, and left. I was dumbfounded. My world collapsed there and then.
My lawyer turned up later that afternoon. He already knew the verdict and the sentence. I think he actually knew before I received the news, which is why he didn’t come to the courtroom.
I went mad. I broke down. I began shouting and screaming. I was livid. He didn’t care. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Never mind, we can appeal.’
‘Appeal?’ I roared. ‘I shouldn’t need to fucking appeal! If you’d done your job properly in the first place it would have been impossible to convict me! You let the prosecutor do and say whatever he liked! You never said a fucking word! Is it any wonder I lost? I kept my mouth shut for three years because you assured me you knew what you were doing! You’re sacked, useless piece of shit that you are!’
To tell you the truth, I was more annoyed at myself than at him. I should have done something; I should have stood up and objected to the prosecution myself, but I’d trusted him. I was now kicking myself for not knowing better.
When I was returned to prison that night, I immediately contacted the Thai Law Society and asked them to recommend a criminal lawyer. They sent me a list of names and I eventually settled for a Doctor of Law.
I was beyond despair at this point, and had pledged to fight the decision in every way I could. What did I have to lose?
I began to feel less helpless as I prepared for the case. There was always a chance I would be able to correct this dreadful mistake and be freed.
Rather than wait for the lawyers to read up on my case, I wrote out all the points of law I thought should be included in my appeal. I then had it all professionally translated into Thai.
According to Thai law there should have been a minimum of three judges sitting on the bench for my trial. During my trial there was only ever one judge – and not always the same one. I believed this to be illegal.
No translator was present in court during any of my hearings – which is also illegal.
I believed that the judge had acted illegally when he cross-examined me and played the role of both prosecutor and judge. I said that this surely constituted a mistrial.
I also noted that no murder weapon was ever produced in court. The prosecutor only submitted a photocopy of part of a knife, and never even proved it to be the murder weapon.
I stated that O’Connor’s alleged testimony should have been stricken from the record. Even the name ‘O’Connor’ was an alias. It was illegal to use an alias in court. The prosecution still didn’t know his real name, which was Mitchel Heath.
And his statement, I’d found out, wasn’t even an eyewitness account. The statement only claimed that I told O’Connor I’d just killed his bodyguard – which was hearsay. And because O’Connor had died before my trial opened, nothing that was alleged to have been said by him could be used as evidence to anything.
In total I listed 15 points that I wanted included in my appeal.