by Shani Krebs
Within a week of the General’s arrival, two of his boys were put in my cell without my knowledge. By this time I had resumed my position as room chief. Normally, the office would first call me, to get my approval or else to negotiate about whether I would take somebody into the cell. When I approached the office clerk to ask why he had put these guys in my room without first checking with me, he appeared slightly nervous. Then he told me he was acting on the General’s instructions.
Our cell was a private room and restricted mainly to foreigners. We were at that stage at our limit of 16 people, so an extra two would mean less space between our beds. I found myself in a dilemma. I had been in prison for close on ten years. I was well established and respected by all. Some of the Thais even called me ‘Mafia’. If I didn’t take a stand on this issue, the General would keep putting his boys in our room and eventually we foreigners would be forced out. If it came to a showdown, being the minority meant that we would have no chance.
I made a decision.
I was not sure whether I was being brave or just plain stupid, but I went to the General, greeted him in the traditional Thai way, and then, in English, told him I would like to speak to him in private. I addressed him as ‘General’, not feeling comfortable calling him ‘Par Chalor’. The General, who could come and go as he pleased, suggested we go to his cell. Very humbly, I introduced myself, but he told me he knew who I was and knew that I owned the gym. I said I knew who he was, too, and told him I had the utmost respect for him. Then I explained to him about our room and informed him that, in fact, I had bought it. It was a private room, I said, and strictly for foreigners. Even though we did have a few Thais in with us, I was the one who decided who could stay in the room. If the General wanted somebody in my room, I added, he should talk to me. To my surprise, the General was most amiable and agreed to respect my wishes. As we shook hands, I cautioned him that if I had any problems with his two boys, it was he who would have to resolve the issue. He laughed and put his arm on my shoulder saying, ‘Mai mi punhar’ (No problem).
One of the Thais the General put in our room was a captain in the police force. He spoke English, but he was arrogant and rude, and his toilet manners were disgusting. He would blow his nose with his fingers and then flick the snot into the toilet, which more often than not landed on the side of the toilet bowl. He would also spit these huge blobs of slimy green phlegm and not flush them away. I was especially irritated because I slept right next to the toilet. The other Thai, an elderly man in his late fifties, had a permanent cough, and I suspected he had tuberculosis. The atmosphere in the room changed after their arrival. Nobody liked them, not even the Thais we already had with us to make up our quota of 16 in the cell. The Thais slept on one side of the room next to each other in the corner. Their beds, no wider than 50cm, were pushed together with no space in between, whereas we foreigners had up to two or three hand’s-breadths between our beds. I felt bad about their space, but I’d explained that we could not give them any more than that because we foreigners were paying a monthly rent to the Building Chief for the privilege of having a bit more space. What can I say? This was prison, and money talks. Nevertheless the Thais seemed quite content sleeping like that, on top of one another, and accepted that this was just how things were.
After a month of clenching my teeth and biting my tongue, I finally cracked. When the Thai policeman kicked the bottom of my bed on his way to the toilet for about the fiftieth time, without ever bothering to apologise, I’d had enough. ‘Come on, man, watch where you’re going,’ I said, pointing my finger at him. He looked at me contemptuously and mumbled something in Thai under his breath. I wanted to jump up and beat him to a pulp – we were roughly the same age and size – but I let it go out of respect for the General. Instead I went to the General the next day and expressed my annoyance, and referred to his friend’s lack of manners.
The General looked at me. Then he took his thumb and slid it across his throat. I took this to mean that I had his permission to deal with the policeman personally. It would cost me money, but what a pleasure it would be to get rid of him. I wasted no time. I went straight to the Building Chief, dropped him an envelope, and gave the names of the two individuals. I made it clear that those guys should be moved out of our cell right away or else, for sure, there would be boxing that night.
The General’s main bodyguard was a man named Shamlong, who was also a policeman. He became a staunch friend and would, I think, have given his life for me. Within days of the General settling in, he had his own mobile phone, and he had his house organised, which formed part of my gym. It was a small place: inside he had a table and a chair, a three-quarter-size foam mattress and a locker for his clothing.
Late one afternoon, the Director of the prison, together with a handful of senior officers and a television crew from Channel Three, a local news channel, came to our section. Although we were already on lockdown, the steel doors were opened. From my cell, where I stood leaning against the bars, we watched the proceedings. Everybody knew the General. He was a popular and colourful political figure, both loved and feared by the people of Thailand. My girlfriend Jai knew him well, in fact, and had interviewed him on several occasions. As I watched them all exchange greetings, I could see that even the Director had great respect for the man. The TV crew came into the corridor and filmed the General’s quarters. The police were more powerful than the government and the General was known to be a close friend of the Crown Prince of Thailand himself.
The General’s house was situated right at the back of the building, with a clear view of the front gate. Anybody who approached from the gate would be in the General’s line of vision. He would sit there and brazenly talk on his mobile. Even when one of the guards walked past, the General would continue with his conversation, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was on the phone. Mobile phones were strictly forbidden, and if you were caught with one, you would be shackled and thrown into solitary. As a precaution, I started calling a mobile phone a ‘dog’, as most of the Thais understood the words ‘mobile’ or ‘cellphone’. So ‘dog’ became the code word we began to use.
Things were changing in our building. With the General’s presence, the guards’ power was being undermined. Within two months of his arrival, mobile phones were everywhere. This was a whole new era in our prison existence. As the room chief, I made it a rule that no dogs would be tolerated in our cell. If we were caught, the prison authorities would take away the privilege of a private room and either put us in a different room or even go so far as to move us to another building. There were a few incidents where, when a room was raided, a dog was thrown into the rubbish bin. When it was retrieved, if nobody owned up, every person from that cell was moved. I was adamant about enforcing this rule. My room had cost me a lot of money, and, besides, I wasn’t about to risk losing the comfort of a private cell and choosing who got to share it with me.
The second chief in Building 2 was replaced by a new officer named Adun. He was a short, stocky, dark-skinned man from the south, and known to be a no-nonsense commodore. On his second day in our building, I was summoned to his office. He wanted to know why there were only 16 people in our cell and pointed out that the Thai rooms held up to 20 prisoners. I couldn’t tell him that I was paying corruption money to his boss, the Building Chief, so I pitched the usual argument, never failing to drop in the word ‘embassy’ a couple of times. He wasn’t particularly impressed, but he didn’t push the case. Then he asked me if anyone in my room had a mobile phone. I assured him that no one did, not that I would have said anything even if somebody had one.
Simon, the French Israeli guy, was now well into his sixties. He was short, only about 1.5m tall, but he had a huge stomach and weighed 90kg. He tied his long grey hair up in a ponytail, which made him look like a Mafia hitman. He was a tough old man with a short temper. We had stayed together for almost four years now, and in this time I had got to understand him, and we became like brothers. Simon had b
een caught with 12kg of heroin when he was arrested, and I’d heard that this was not his first trip to Thailand.
Simon smoked cigarettes and ate unhealthily. For most of the day he sat around in his deckchair. He was due to be transferred to an Israeli prison, but there was a delay on the part of the Israeli embassy, which really stressed him out. It seemed that his government, like the South African government, didn’t give a shit about prisoners. Our families were the only ones who cared about us. This was the stark truth.
On 10 May it was Shabbos, and around 12.45am I heard muffled noises coming from Simon’s bed. He was moaning and his body was convulsing. One of the Thais who slept opposite him came to wake me up. Something was seriously wrong. I wasn’t sure what to do, so we tried to sit Simon up. His eyes darted desperately from side to side as he attempted to speak, but nothing came out except incoherent noises. His left side, from his shoulder to his feet had become completely paralysed. He had had a stroke. We gave him water, and then four or five of us massaged his arms and legs, and gently rubbed his chest area. I whispered in his ear, ‘Hold on, Simon, don’t let go, hold on.’ I recited the Shema Yisrael and begged Hashem to spare him. He had a wife and grandchildren waiting for him in Israel. Prison was the last place any man, no matter how bad, should die. It broke my heart to watch, but what made it worse was that there was nothing I could do. If the Israeli government had been more efficient, Simon would have been transferred a year earlier and might never even have had a stroke.
The following morning, Simon was taken to the hospital. Fortunately, on Monday morning Jai and I had our regular visit and I immediately informed her about Simon. I asked her to call Rabbi Kantor. Thanks to Jai, after that Simon was taken by ambulance to the police hospital, where the medical care was of international standard. That afternoon, I was called to the office and asked to pack Simon’s things. He didn’t have many belongings, so I put all his stuff into a small sports bag. I knew I would never see him again, but I believed, knowing how strong he was and how close to his freedom, that he would make it back to Israel.
No sooner had Simon left than a young South African guy by the name of Jonnie Ratchett arrived. Jonnie had been arrested a couple of months earlier. I asked Jai to visit him during the initial days of his incarceration, so through Jai I knew when his court case was coming up. She told him that when he came to Bangkwang he should ask to come to Building 2.
Jonnie arrived on 14 May 2003. His father was a British citizen and his mother was South African. Soon after he was arrested he discovered that South Africa had no treaty in place with Thailand regarding prisoners, so he relinquished his citizenship and became a British subject. My heart went out to him. He was 26 years old and, according to him, innocently accused. His wife, a Thai prostitute and the mother of his child, had also been detained and they were both sentenced to life.
I took Jonnie into my house, and he took over Simon’s spot. Jonnie was like a breath of fresh air in my life, and his youth and innocence rubbed off on all of us. He and I became instant friends. After all, he was a kindred spirit.
Jai was amazing. She visited all the South African inmates and acted as a go-between for them and their families. From the £100 I received from Edna in Manchester most months, I would give half to Jai. This would cover her transport costs, and often she would use the money to buy fresh fruit for the other South Africans and myself.
The head of the Blue Shirts was a Thai Muslim prisoner, also an ex-cop, and a murderer. His name was Somsak and he came from the south. He answered directly to Adun, the second chief, who assigned him to spy on the General and his boys. One of the General’s boys, Aporn, had a locker outside my house. Somsak started patrolling our area during the day; he was even watching me. Word got back to the General that Somsak was watching him and had reported that the General and his boys were the main distributors in the building of mobile phones. Mobile phones had become big business and, naturally, it was the guards who brought them in. One afternoon, about two hours after lockdown, while I was using the toilet, I looked out the bars into the adjoining houses, where I saw about 30 commodores. Some were from Bangkwang, the others from the Department of Corrections. I realised we were about to be raided. I had time only to warn Joseph, who had a cellphone on him. Seconds later, I heard the steel gates to our section being opened. The guards charged inside. The General was in his room. A thorough check was conducted of the corridor, the Chinese room and the General’s section, and they bust the General with a mobile, which was confiscated. Luckily, our own room was not searched or they would surely have bust Joseph. The next day, the General was not happy, but he understood that from then on he would have to be more vigilant and could no longer use his mobile so openly.
At the request of the General, I allowed one of his boys to stay in our room. He slept at the entrance, right next to the steel door. One morning at around 5am, when I was finishing up in the toilet, I noticed the General crawling on his hands and knees out of his section across the corridor towards our cell. As he reached the door, the Thai guy in our cell slipped him something wrapped in plastic. I knew it was a dog. There was nothing I could do about the General keeping his telephone in my room, but I did tell the Thai guy that, in the event that our room was raided, he would have to take responsibility.
With the introduction of mobile phones, thanks to the General, apart from the upsurge of drug activity both inside and outside the prison, the atmosphere became far more relaxed. For prisoners to have instant contact with their families made a big difference to their lives. Times were good. The casino was running, drugs were openly being used, and home-brewed alcohol was flowing. The ‘Big Tiger’ was not as fierce as its reputation would have you believe. As long as the guards were making their money, the wheels of Bangkwang would never stop turning. Life was so good that many of us became complacent. The informers were still feeding information to the prison authorities.
It was just a matter of time before there would be another clampdown.
On the home front, my family continued to campaign on my behalf. Every possible avenue to secure my release was being pursued. Benji Schleider had become a friend of the family. While he was in London in August, and staying at the Royal Garden Hotel, coincidentally Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, second of the Thai King’s daughters, was in London, too. On one of Her Royal Highness’s shopping trips to Bond Street, Benji spotted her in Grays Antique Market. Very respectfully, he managed to approach the Princess and discussed my situation with her. She promised to look into the matter.
Meanwhile we had heard that a general amnesty was going to be granted in August, on the occasion of Her Majesty the Queen’s sixth-cycle birthday, and that all prisoners would benefit. It was said that drug cases would be included, but this time there was a catch for those prisoners. A royal decree was passed stipulating that, if the cases for those drug offenders who had been sentenced to more than eight years had not been final by the time of the previous royal decree granting an amnesty (which had been in 1999), these prisoners would not be eligible to benefit from the August amnesty. If this was true, it would be a terrible blow for all new drug offenders.
In the August amnesty my sentence dropped from 40 years down to 36, plus a few months. While I knew I could never survive 33 years in prison, at least there was movement in the right direction. Slowly, my sentence was being reduced. Rumour had it that there was another big amnesty coming up in 2006. Hope kept being dangled in our faces like a carrot on a string. All the same, it was hope that kept me going.
My art remained my escape, the world where I found peace and purpose. There were no walls in that world, and no pain. There my sprit could soar like an eagle gliding through the sky. I became the sculptor of my own destiny. My art was more than just painting pretty pictures; it was about redemption, taking back what I had lost, and holding on to my faith.
One morning, out of the blue, and just before shower time, four guards and Somsak, the Blue Shirts’ head, raided the lo
cker belonging to Aporn, the General’s dog handler. They also searched the surrounding garden, poking into the soil with metal poles. The guards weren’t really interested and did their checking half-heartedly. It was almost the end of their day and the last thing they wanted to do was work, but Somsak, who was a prisoner himself, was hell-bent on busting Aporn with a mobile phone. Knowing that Adun was behind him, his position had gone to his head. In any event, for all their efforts they found nothing.
Somsak stayed upstairs and he slept in the corridor. He slept late every morning and only came downstairs around 7.45am, in time for the national anthem at 8, whereas everybody else would come out an hour earlier. On the morning of 13 October 2004, I had just settled down to paint (it was around 7.30) when I heard the most blood-curdling screaming coming from upstairs. The screams lasted only about a minute but seemed to go on for much longer. By the time I came around the other side of the building, I saw a group of about eight prisoners walking briskly out of the building, Aporn among them. They came straight towards me and I couldn’t help but notice their eyes. All of the guys seemed highly charged and their eyes were bloodshot. Translated: these prisoners were in kill mode. If you are ever unlucky enough to look into a person’s eyes just after they have committed a murder, I’d advise you to run. You will have just seen what a psychotic killer looks like. I saw that look that morning.
Somsak was carried down by some of the room cleaners. He had stab wounds to every part of his upper abdomen. Blood was pouring out of him. His eyes were already on the brink of lifelessness. He was loaded onto a wheelbarrow and rushed to the hospital, but he died before he even got there. I honestly can’t say that I felt any sympathy for the man; he had broken the code of silence. An informer’s end is death, no matter what. The fucker deserved what he got.
