A Secret History of the Bangkok Hilton

by Chavoret Jaruboon

  The most shocking twist of all was the arrest on January 18, 1996 of Pramern Potplad, the key witness whose testimony had led to four wrongful convictions. He pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced to eight years in jail. He told the court that he had been acting under orders from a policeman named Mongkol Sripo, who was in charge of the 1986 investigation into Sherry’s murder. [1]

  Krasae said Mongkol and another investigator had brought Pramern into a room, shown him their pictures, and told him to identify them as the men he had seen carrying Sherry out of Winai’s condominium before she was found dead.

  However, Mongkol resigned before he was dismissed by the Royal Thai Police and had already settled in America for several years, thus escaping legal action against him.

  The other five investigators who worked on the case with Mongkol were duly promoted at work before reaching retirement. None ever faced criminal action as it was ruled that they had no knowledge of Mongkol’s plan to frame the innocent men. While the four scapegoats suffered, these policemen not only were awarded with unmerited career advancements but also got off scot-free.

  One account said Pramern had been paid a pitiful fee of 500 baht to conspire with Mongkol while another claimed he was paid in zinc tiles, which he used to patch the roof of his house. The idea of a ‘witness-for-hire’ might sound absurd to some but several inmates in Bang Kwang will tell you that some police resort to this ‘shortcut’ along with embellishments in their reports to make their case relevant to the prosecutors so they can close the case.

  The Office of Attorney General held a seminar, which was inspired by the aftermath of the wrongful convictions in the Sherry Ann case, looking at how to provide better protection for innocent people. Suggestions and opinions from this seminar led to changes in judicial procedure and later were included in the constitution.

  After Mongkol and Premern had been exposed, the two remaining scapegoats and the families of the deceased men did not receive any apology or help from the police. An uphill struggle to instigate a 54.5 million baht lawsuit for compensation against the six police officers who had framed the four men and the Royal Thai Police began in 1997.

  Recalling the day he tried to file the complaint at the Crime Suppression Division, Krasae said, ‘No one dared to touch our complaint as the police officers who falsely arrested us had become high-ranking ones by that time. Luckily, the moment I was about to give up and go home I came across the police officer who had reopened the case and he accepted our complaint.’

  Krasae and Thawat and five relatives of the two dead men, became seven plaintiffs in this lawsuit and requested a pro bono trial which would exempt them from having to pay hefty court fees. Krasae said the police tried to buy time from the beginning saying the plaintiffs were not eligible for financial help as they were not really poor people. It took almost three years before the court allowed them a pro bono trial. Afterwards, the proceedings were delayed by many deferments from the police.

  Krasae outlined his part of the compensation request as follows: 10 million baht for making him a murderer of a young girl in the public eye; five million baht for the assault by the Samut Prakan police; 96,300 baht for salaries he could have made from his job; another 10 million baht for the hardship he had to endure in the prison including being shackled at all time, poor diet and trauma from being jailed with unstable and dangerous inmates on death row.

  He didn’t expect to be awarded the 25 million baht but he hoped he would get enough to pay off the debts incurred by his aging mother who had to borrow money to pay for trips she made from Ayutthaya province to visit him at the prison in Nonthaburi.

  Meanwhile, almost two years after the round-up of the second set of suspects in Sherry Ann’s murder, on August 6, 1997, the court of first instance handed down death penalties to three defendants; Samak, Somphong and Suvibol. Samak pleaded guilty and implicated Suvibol as the mastermind.

  In early 1999, the Appeal Court upheld three death sentences but the Supreme Court acquitted Suvibol due to insufficient evidence and commuted the other two death sentences to life in prison on May 29, 1999. Somphong was named as the real killer and Samak his accomplice. Some said they were just more scapegoats.

  Thawat succumbed to throat cancer before he could receive closure on the compensation suit. Kittisak, who represented the seven plaintiffs, said he had contacted Pramern to testify against the police while he was in jail and Pramern had agreed to do so. However, due to delays in the legal proceedings, Pramern was released and it took time for the lawyer to locate him again. Kittisak said that a few days before a court hearing at which Pramern was due to appear, his wife and child were arrested for narcotics possession and Pramern disappeared again, this time for good.

  About this suspicious disappearance of his key witness against the police, Kittisak said: ‘If you ask me, he has obviously been abducted. But I can’t say for certain who is his abductor. My theory is that the real culprit or culprits colluded with the police to frame these four innocent men. The police who are responsible for this treachery know who the real culprits are and must have been paid a hefty sum for setting these scapegoats up. No one would agree to take such a risky action, which could completely jeopardise their career, unless the fee was right. Fabricating things in order to make an innocent person look guilty can only be the work of the police. The prosecutors have no part in it.’

  Drawing upon the case, Kittisak proposed a practice of at least two separate police teams working on one case to ensure transparency.

  It was six years before the Civil Court ruled, on September 25, 2003, that the Royal Thai Police had to pay Krasae and the relatives of the three dead men about 26 million baht in compensation because they had introduced a false witness to frame the four men. Presiding Judge Kanchana said, ‘The police, Major Mongkol Sripo in particular, have a legal obligation to uphold the law, but they failed to do so by rigging the investigation. Therefore, they are liable to pay for the damage incurred.’ The verdict stipulated the compensation plus accrued 7.5 percent interest dating back to 1997, when the compensation suit had been filed.

  Krasae, the sole living scapegoat, was awarded the most with 10 million baht, which was less than half what he had asked for. Thawat, who died before the ruling, was awarded eight million baht and the sum was expected to go to his daughters. Rungchalerm’s family was awarded 6.6 million baht while the remaining 1.3 million baht went to Pitak’s mother, who said no amount of compensation could make up for the loss of her closest child.

  This should have marked an ending to this 17-year-long tragedy but another outcry occurred after the then national police chief Sant Sarutanond said a hasty payment would set a bad precedent. He also said he would ask legal advisers to review the verdict before determining whether to appeal. His statement was deemed to be very insensitive. It was also in contrast to a response to the verdict by then premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who said the police should not delay payment of the compensation further with a lengthy appeal process.

  For a time it was uncertain whether the police would appeal. Tun, Rungchalerm’s wife, said, ‘If you ask me whether I hate the police, the answer is yes. But I also realise that there are good police out there. I want to implore the police not to submit an appeal [against the compensation ruling]. I’m so exhausted. Please allow me closure before I die.’

  Tun hoped to move out of the slum they were living in with the 6.6 million baht compensation, fulfilling a long overdue dream of her dead husband of a better life for his family. Krasae also pleaded with the police not to appeal.

  On October 1, 2003, the seven plaintiffs handed a petition to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, pleading with the Royal Thai Police not to appeal the ruling. During his weekly radio programme on October 4, 2003, Thaksin expressed his sympathy for the men. The plaintiffs had been through a terrible ordeal, he said, and the court had already ruled that the police were guilty s
o the police should immediately compensate them out of their own pocket. Their superiors should pay close attention to how their subordinates conducted themselves, to prevent them from taking bribes or engaging in other sorts of corruption, he added. He instructed the secretary to the Cabinet to tell the Royal Police and Attorney General’s office not to appeal. The police later confirmed they would not appeal.

  In the same year, the Justice Ministry paid 13 million baht in compensation to the first group of 21 crime victims and 31 wrongfully prosecuted people under the Constitution and Criminal Victims Compensation Act which guarantees the right to compensation from the state for victims of wrongful prosecution and crime victims. At that time, 540 people had filed complaints demanding compensation.

  Among those were a couple who had been detained for four years from 1998 on charges of robbing and attempting to murder a customer at their own restaurant. They received about 560,000 baht, which went to pay off debts they had incurred from hiring lawyers to defend their innocence. They said the sum was not worth their loss of freedom.

  Another wrongfully prosecuted man named Krit was compensated with a sum of 856,600 baht. His mistress became furious with him when he would not divorce his legal wife to be with her. She conspired with police relatives to frame him for rape and robbery. The Criminal and Appeal Court found him guilty.

  During his five years and nine months in Ayutthaya prison, he studied law and defended himself in the Supreme Court and won the case. Krit suggested that the state should imprison the investigators who wronged him instead of compensating him.

  The figures speak for themselves. From a database at the Office of Rights and Freedom at the Justice Ministry, out of 610 cases that came before the courts in 2005, complaints of wrongful indictment were received in 355 cases. For 214 of these cases, 60 million baht was paid in compensation. During the first nine months of 2006, out of 354 complaints of wrongful indictment, 216 of them were compensated with a combined 58 million baht.

  Despite the sheer amount of injustice in the Sherry Ann Duncan case, I believe legacies remain that have lead to improvements in the Thai judicial system. At the very least, the police reopened the case and rectified the miscarriage of justice.

  The harshest criticism of the Thai criminal justice system is reserved for the police force, which is viewed as incompetent and corrupt. The headlines about bad police never fail to shock and upset the public yet not a year goes by without talk of reform in the police force or another scandal. This is not to say that all police officers are corrupt and unethical in their conduct. To a degree, I can sympathise with good policemen who are discouraged by the unfavourable opinion of them that many people have, as prison guards are viewed as violent and corrupt too.

  I’ve met killers who showed no remorse, boasting about the number of people they killed minutes before their execution. On those unfortunate occasions, I couldn’t help but feel grateful that the police arrested these psychopaths, making Thailand a safer place. I would like to believe that, with pressure and the watchful eyes of the media and concerned citizens, the police force would not allow a case like the murder of Sherry Ann to happen again.

  [1]A police fact-finding team determined that Mongkol had hired Pramern to provide false testimony and act as a witness against the four defendants. Mongkol was later dismissed from the police service for serious disciplinary offences with retroactive effect to October 1 1993. The dismissal order was issued in 1999.

  Chapter 7

  What life After Prison?

  Many inmates in the Bangkok Hilton are adamant that they are victims of a crime rather than the perpetrators. They insist they were tortured by policemen until they confessed to bogus charges. It is unnerving to think that some officers, who are the first line of justice, could be wrongdoers themselves. Yet even today there is still one report after another of police who have behaved thuggishly.

  In my role as a prison guard, I paid little attention to most of these self-proclaimed fall guys. That changed when news of a group of border patrol police who framed people for possession of narcotics made headlines in early 2008.

  The police group in question, led by police captain Nat Chonnithiwanit, abducted people, physically abused them, extorted money from them, forced them to participate in undercover stings and charged them with drug offences. About 200 drug cases instigated by them were to be reinvestigated.

  In December 2009, Nat and seven co-defendants were found guilty of extorting a 300,000 baht ransom from a woman they had abducted. They also threatened to charge her with having 800 pills of yaba (amphetamine). Each of them was sentenced to five years in jail and ordered to pay damages to her. At the time of writing, they are facing about 30 cases in all.

  The scandal seemed to echo the story told by Pitak, who had done time in Bang Kwang. Pitak and his former lover Nok had been convicted of possession of heroin with intent to sell when they were a young couple. Each was sentenced to life in prison for a crime they insisted they hadn’t committed.

  I visited Pitak and Nok to ask them about their story. You are free to make your own judgment. This is what Pitak said to me:

  When children are being unruly, some parents warn them to behave by saying: ‘I’ll call the police to come and get you.’ To many Thais, the police are not only figures of authority but also of fear and disdain. To me, this notion is justified.

  I used to work at a pier management company in the southern province of Trang. Fishing and transport boats operating in the Andaman Sea visited our pier for maintenance and repair. I wore two hats as a manager and head mechanic. Life was good to me then but my family hadn’t always had it easy.

  During World War II, the Japanese soldiers arrived on a beach in Songkla in December 1941. My father co-owned a small factory and one day while driving a truck alone, he was ambushed by Japanese soldiers. They demanded the truck at gunpoint and forced him to work for them as a repairman. After the war was over, he was reunited with Mae. Although Por and Mae were neither highly educated nor rich, they always taught me to work hard towards my goals by being examples themselves.

  So I did and by 1982 I had many friends and a steady well-paid job. One thing was still missing from my life: romance. Then I met Nok, who is of Hainan Chinese descent. She worked at a coffee shop in the city area of Trang. It belonged to her uncle and was one of many businesses her wealthy family owned. Although I was very busy at work, I couldn’t help but go to the shop more to get to know her. The 20 kilometres between my place and the coffee shop wasn’t a problem as I had a company car.

  Years of being schooled in Bangkok made her more refined, chatty and sociable than the girls I had been used to. Although a sao krung (city girl) like her attracted admirers like bees to a flower, I had the edge in the form of company car.

  When we were in the mood for a fun-filled night out, we went to Hat Yai in Songkla, the nearest place for such entertainment then. Nok and I communicated openly and we talked about the deeper things, including the fact that she had run away from a cheating husband in Bangkok. She had moved to Trang to think over her unhappy marriage. I knew she was on the rebound and might not take me seriously but I was glad to be with her nonetheless. We weren’t conservative and it didn’t take long before we were intimate.

  One day I noticed she was preoccupied and asked what was bothering her. After a long silence, she said, ‘I’m not sure how to break it to you… Mong has been trying to persuade me to hold drugs for him and to pass them to his buyer.’

  Mong was an acquaintance of ours from the coffee shop. He wasn’t fluent in Thai but I’m not sure of his origins. I knew him as a seller of cosmetics and clothing, which fashionable Nok bought regularly. She had also agreed to sell clothes for him at her uncle’s shop and the business was doing well.

  She continued, ‘Of course, I said “no” but he is persistent. I fear repercussion
if I continue to say no. I still have my dealings with him and I’m not sure what to do.’

  I suggested she distance herself from him and let her relatives handle business with him instead. We never discussed it again.

  That was when I found out he was a drug dealer but the revelation wasn’t a big shock to me. The smuggling of oil, rice, sugar and mineral rocks by boat was rife, among other vices, in Trang. I was privy to these illicit deals because of my work but I wasn’t interested in joining their ranks or playing informer for fear of retaliation. At one time, a man who claimed to be in charge of the entire smuggling ring had tried to persuade me to facilitate his business at the pier in exchange for a huge sum.

  He said, ‘One call to my army friend is all it takes to solve every problem you might have with the police.’ He handed me the business card of a high-ranking army officer. I returned it and declined his offer as politely as I could, saying I already had enough on my plate. For all I know, he might have been bluffing.

  The company I worked for ordered water tanks from a factory in Hat Yai. We advanced a cheque to the factory owner in June but by September still hadn’t received the order. I was asked to sort it out and decided to kill two birds with one stone: visit the factory and have a weekend with Nok in Hat Yai. Before we left Trang, Nok told me she was pregnant and I took the news as a good omen despite our affair. Little did we know that it would be the last weekend we would have to celebrate.

  When we got there, the factory owner was away on business. His wife called him and said he would surely be back later and would meet me at my hotel the following morning. I checked into the hotel on Saturday, September 11, 1982. There was no sign of him on Sunday morning and I thought that either he was late or he had decided to stand me up. I went to reception to pay for the room while Nok waited on a sofa at the other side of the lobby. While I was checking out, I heard footsteps approaching me from behind. Before I could turn to face them, my wrists were grabbed and forced against my back. Handcuffed, I struggled to break free but there was very little I could do against the force of three strange men. The receptionist looked on in shock.