by Colin Martin
In fact, Superintendent Aneke treated me very well. He took me into his office every morning for a coffee and most afternoons or evenings he’d give me a beer or two – to help me sleep.
I later concluded that he was really only talking to me to improve his English.
I spent over two weeks in the Siriacha police station in downtown Chonburi. Although the conditions in the holding cells were inhuman by European standards, they were luxurious compared to what was coming next. On 5 August of that same year, I was taken to court on suspicion of murder, where a judge sent me to one of the most squalid and dangerous prisons on earth.
8
The Thai justice system is corrupt to the core. Criminals can buy their way out of any charge if they have the right connections and enough money. There is, to put it simply, no justice.
I had never seen the inside of a Thai courtroom. I knew petty corruption among government officials was rife, but I had no idea that such criminality and corruption was endemic.
The police in Chonburi transported me to court in the back of a pick-up truck. On arrival at the court building I was ushered into a small room, where I was searched.
One of the guards told me to take my shoes and socks off. I looked at the floor. It was soaking wet from where the single toilet had overflowed. There were bits of food, shit and garbage everywhere. And they wanted me to walk barefoot in it.
After a sharp jab in the ribs with a baton, I decided it would be safer to follow orders, and took my shoes and socks off. It was disgusting.
Once I’d entered the cell I noticed that everyone was wearing rusty chains on their legs. I saw three foreigners sitting in the far corner, away from the Thai prisoners. I walked over to them and introduced myself. They might speak English, at least. One of the prisoners introduced himself as Bruno.
‘What’s the story with the leg irons?’ I asked.
‘Get used to it. Every time you come to court you have to wear them.’
He said he had been in jail for over two years, so I guessed he must be familiar with the system.
I noticed that a couple of the Thai prisoners had clean, shiny chains, so I asked Bruno why they were not wearing rusty shackles like everyone else.
Bruno laughed and explained that the guys with the clean chains were charged with murder. He said murder suspects had to wear leg irons 24 hours a day until after their trial was over.
He then asked me what I’d been charged with.
‘Murder,’ I sighed.
‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘They’ll take them off as soon as your trial’s over.’
‘How long will that take?’ I asked.
‘About four or five years,’ he said matter-of-factly.
I didn’t believe a word of it. I thought he was just winding me up. I asked a few more questions about the court and the prison but I didn’t believe any of the answers.
Eventually my name was called, and I joined a group of another 20 or so prisoners. I was marched barefoot out of the cell and up to the courtroom on the first floor.
A clerk walked in, called out everyone’s name, and then said, ‘Remanded for 12 days.’
That was it. There was no judge present, no remand hearing and no defence lawyer.
Shackled, still injured and suffering from shock, I was next told to sign some papers, and then we were all marched back down to the holding cell.
The documents were written in Thai, which I couldn’t understand. Although I didn’t know what I’d signed, I knew it was a case of either sign or suffer another beating.
Back downstairs in the holding cell, we waited for hours until everything was finished in the court upstairs. The bus came to take us to Chonburi Prison.
This was it: I was actually going to jail.
Looking back, I remember saying to myself that someone would turn up and get me out. The whole thing was a misunderstanding. I was subconsciously trying to convince myself that I would be saved.
After all, I needed something to believe in. I had been tortured, I had signed a murder confession and I was now at the mercy of a justice system run by criminals.
I remember thinking about my family in Ireland and about this nightmare situation as I lined up in the dirt to board the bus. The scene reminded me of documentaries I’d seen about concentration camps in World War II.
As the guy in front stood up, I followed and was counted as I passed out of the cell. The prison bus itself was built to hold a maximum of about 50 men, with a single row of wooden benches running down each side, and standing room in the middle.
On that particular day, the guards beat, pushed and shoved at least 120 prisoners into the vehicle. I had never experienced anything like it.
I was pinned solid between 120 stinking bodies. Someone was standing on my feet, someone else’s elbow was digging into my back, while someone’s shoulder was lodged in my throat.
I was barely able to move. The bus had no glass in the windows, just bars and a wire mesh. The heat was stifling.
We were treated like animals. The driver was totally unconcerned about his human cargo. He drove at speed and often had to brake hard for a corner. This would result in the passengers surging forward, squashing each other.
You couldn’t fall because there just wasn’t anywhere to fall. We were jammed together and held each other up.
I vividly remember entering the jail. We were unloaded in an open yard about 20 metres square. It was here that the real brutality began.
Shackled and chained, we were unloaded off the bus. The seasoned prisoners were lined up in rows. There were about 15 new prisoners with me, and we were lined up to the side.
All the prisoners stripped off their shirts and opened the string holding their shorts. I didn’t know what to do and just followed the others’ lead.
I was trying to stay alive and blend in. I was convinced that I would be killed if a row broke out.
The guards were all ex-army paratroopers. They looked like military men. They wore fatigues, complete with parachute wings, campaign badges and combat boots, and they carried heavy wooden batons – two or three inches think, and three feet long.
Everyone referred to them as the commandos. There were about six of them in charge of us that particular day.
Some of the guards wore what looked like security guards’ uniforms, but with shorts instead of long trousers. These also carried batons.
I would learn that these guards were trustees, or blueshirts. They were prisoners who acted as junior guards.
They were all menacing characters and, by the looks of them, they were capable of anything.
One commando walked through the rows of prisoners, stopping at each man, and forcing him to open his mouth and stick out his tongue. This guard peered into each man’s mouth to make sure he hadn’t concealed anything.
Each prisoner was then forced to let his shorts fall to the ground and expose himself. The commando forced every one of us to lift our penises and testicles, and then pull back our foreskins.
What seemed to be a ritual humiliation didn’t end there. He next made each one of us turn around, bend over, and pull our buttocks apart to let another commando search inside our anuses. Each man repeated this as the guard walked along the line.
Anyone slow at performing this task was beaten.
The commandos hated the prisoners. There was something sinister about the way they moved among us. I couldn’t make out what it was at first but it was there.
They never made eye contact or spoke to the prisoners; I can only describe them as being inhuman.
In time I would learn that they made a point of ritually degrading a small number of prisoners at every opportunity in order to keep us under control. On that day, they picked two or three out of each line and they were told to sta
nd to one side for no apparent reason.
The new prisoners were the last group subjected to this ordeal that particular day. We were told to strip naked right there, and leave our clothes in a pile in front of us. I did as I was told.
A trustee then came and checked our clothes and any belongings. No long trousers or jeans were allowed, so mine were cut to make shorts. The trustees also removed our jewellery and watches.
I quickly realised that if a commando liked a watch, he simply took it. If the commando liked a ring, he also took it.
As we were standing there, one guy was stupid enough to protest when the commando picked up a particularly expensive-looking gold watch. The guy said it had been a present from his mother; he really couldn’t bear to give it away.
The commando looked at him, dropped the watch and crushed it with the heel of his combat boot. If he couldn’t have it, nobody else could either.
One by one, we paraded naked in front of a commando who was sitting down. This man was a chief. He asked what we were charged with. We answered individually. He next pointed at our groins with his stick.
We lifted our penises and testicles, pulled back our foreskins, turned, bent over and he checked our rectums. It was humiliating.
The other prisoners stood laughing at our embarrassment and awkwardness. 100-odd people laughing at us compounded the appalling experience.
But it wasn’t over. He picked me and two other men out of the 15 new prisoners and told us to go and stand with the others he’d picked out earlier. I was among the chosen few.
As I stood there, still naked, a trustee came over with a bucket of water and a bar of soap. He told us to soap our behinds as he put on a rubber glove.
The first man in line obeyed him without question; he soaped his arse and bent over. The trustee thrust two or three fingers into the prisoner’s anus.
He pulled his fingers out after a few seconds, rinsed his hand in the bucket and moved on to the next man, and then the next. I was about fifth in line.
When he came to me, the trustee said, ‘Hey you, foreigner. You’re next.’
I told him to fuck off.
The commando calmly walked towards me.
‘What did you say?’
I told him that I was not going to allow anyone to search me internally. I said I didn’t care what they did: nobody was going to put their fingers up my arse. As soon as I opened my mouth I began to panic. I feared I would be raped, or worse.
Trying desperately to think of a legitimate way of backing down, I pointed out that the trustee had used the same glove on the other prisoners but had only rinsed his hands in water. I said the risk of catching AIDS was more than I was willing to accept.
I told the commando that if he wanted to check my rectum I couldn’t stop him, but asked if he could get a doctor.
I knew the commando would have to beat me for insubordination, but I made up my mind not to make it easy for him. I have moments of bravery, or stupidity, and at that moment I didn’t care if I got beaten or shot dead.
The commando smiled, hit me hard in the stomach, and walked away.
I was surprised and more than a little relieved. The trustee moved on down the line and carried out his revolting instructions. Everyone else obeyed without question, but I managed to escape the internal search.
9
The prisoners were counted and led off to their cells. Of the new prisoners, I was the only one charged with murder, so I was taken to the chain shop.
Two commandos and four trustees escorted me to a small room located in the prison basement. The chain shop was like something out of the middle ages.
They made me sit on a chair in front of an anvil. The ‘chain man’, a prisoner, carefully selected a set of chains with ankle rings. They weighed about 4 kg and were dirty, rusty old ones.
Two of the trustees held me down while another two lifted my leg and held it on the anvil. The chain man slipped the ankle ring over my feet and hammered it closed. I was manhandled like a wild animal.
Now I was shackled. I think this experience affected me more than any other. I felt like a slave; I was overcome with a sense of utter desolation and despair.
I refused to pick up the chains and walk. On one hand I kept saying to myself that I wasn’t a fucking animal and I wasn’t going to accept being chained like one.
In reality, the chains represented the end of my life as I knew it. I had not only lost my liberty but also my self belief. You could say the chains represented my innermost horror.
In fact, it was so bad that I couldn’t bear to touch them, or even look at my feet. Instead, I shuffled away, dragging the chains along behind me because I refused to accept that I was manacled.
Once chained, I was escorted into a cell used to hold those returning from court.
The cell looked full, but the commando opened the door and shoved me in anyway. I stood there in despair, not knowing what to do until the room leader came over to me.
He spoke very basic English.
‘What your name? How old you? You killing case?’
The latter was obvious – I was in chains.
This man showed me some kindness in what I considered to be my darkest hour.
‘You sleep here, okay my friend?’
He pointed me towards an empty space on the floor.
There was no bed, mattress, or blanket. There was just a cold and hard concrete floor.
There were over 100 Thai prisoners in the cell, and they all slept shoulder to shoulder. Some were lucky enough to have blankets to lie on, but most didn’t.
Even though the cell became a sort of refuge it was still utterly squalid.
There were three open-style toilets which were really just holes in the ground, and a large earthenware jar full of water which was used both for drinking and for flushing the toilet. There was no toilet paper. The prisoners used their hands to clean themselves, then washed themselves in the water jar.
One of my friends had brought me a book when I was in the police station. I remember that it was written by Wilbur Smith and called A Sparrow Falls. I used it as my pillow.
I didn’t sleep on my first night.
The sensation of wearing chains made it very difficult to relax or find any kind of comfortable position to rest. What I found upsetting was the fact that the chains didn’t actually serve a purpose other than to degrade.
They left prisoners with a sense of total imprison-ment, and total defeat.
I lay awake all that night thinking about everything that had happened to me. I cried myself to sleep. I dreaded what horrors awaited me in the morning.
But I also promised myself that I would survive no matter what I had to do. I had reached rock-bottom, which presented me with two options. I could either put an end to my life, or I could stay alive and try to secure my freedom.
* * *
In the morning I was taken to see the building chief. He only spoke Thai, so a Pakistani prisoner called Ali was brought along to translate.
The building chief asked me about my case. I explained what had happened as best I could.
The first question my new chief asked was, ‘Why didn’t you pay?’
In fact, every Thai prisoner, every prison guard and every lawyer would ask this.
‘If you’d paid you wouldn’t be here. It’s the same,’ he said. ‘The police call it bail but it’s the same. It goes straight into their pockets. It’s better to pay! Now you will have to pay the prosecutor too, maybe half a million baht. If you don’t pay, you will lose.’
In Thailand it’s not so much that paying off the police is an option, it’s expected.
After my interview with the building chief, Ali showed me around – not that there was much to see.
The ethos of Chonb
uri was all about degradation and keeping the prisoners contained. The facilities were primitive and dilapidated.
There was a block of ten open toilets that were used by 2,000 prisoners. The shower area was fenced off with barbed wire. The showers, though, were not showers at all. They consisted of large water troughs that you scooped water from with a bowl.
Ali told me that prisoners were only allowed five bowls of water each. The guards would whistle and you’d take one. If you tried to take another or if your timing was out, they’d beat you with a club.
Ali then took me to the prison shop where the commandos sold food, and finally to the canteen itself, where the prisoners were supposed to eat.
He told me that the daily dish was red rice, doled out of large vats with a shovel, and a spicy fish-bone soup; which contained no fish meat.
I got close enough to smell it, and that was all I dared to do.
The Thai prisoners, Ali told me, all worked in the prison factories from eight in the morning until eight at night, with an hour for lunch.
Most of the factories were assembly-type work areas where they made umbrellas, plastic flowers and paper bags. There was also a woodwork shop which produced furniture.
Ali explained that each prisoner was given a quota which he must complete – for example, 20 umbrellas or 50 plastic flowers per hour. If the prisoner failed to reach his quota, he would be beaten by the guards, so most people paid for the more experienced inmates to slip them a few of theirs.
Or, as Ali pointed out, inmates could pay off a guard each month to leave them alone.
Money talked.
The idea and principle of having inmates work, apart from occupying them, was to give the inmates a little income so that they could support themselves.
Some of the factories in Chonburi were government sponsored, mostly producing fancy goods or artwork.
I learned that inmates working in these factories were paid up to 500 baht per month – not a large sum, but enough to buy a few necessities.