A police investigation panel has been set up to look into a Bang Pong Pang police investigator and other officers involved in the arrest of a man who was mistakenly prosecuted under his cousin’s name and later died in prison.

 Achariya Ruangrathana, president of The Club to Assist Victims of Crimes, yesterday led the family of the victim to file a complaint with Metropolitan Police Bureau chief Kamronwit Thoopkrachang.

The complaint calls for an investigation into Pol Lt Athipat Maisuk, a police investigator, and other officers involved in the arrest and prosecution of Kritsana Jengcharoen.

The family has accused the officers of not properly verifying the victim’s identity before jailing him.

Kritsana, 37, died in prison after being jailed under the name of his cousin Thanakij Sabking, 38.

Mr Achariya said Kritsana was arrested on March 6 at 2am for drink driving but since he had a previous drink-driving conviction he told Bang Pong Pang police that he was his cousin, Thanakij, who died in early January.

Police did not check Kritsana’s ID card carefully and prosecuted him as his cousin Thanakij.

The court found him guilty of drink driving and sentenced him to 42 days in prison because he was unable to pay the 8,500-baht fine.

On March 9 he was savagely beaten by other inmates and died at Khlong Five Prison in Pathum Thani.

The prison officers reported his death to police at Thanya Buri police station following the attack.

Mr Achariya said the attack took place in the presence of prison wardens.

However, no one took him to the hospital. He also said Kritsana was handcuffed at the time of the attack and that it was videotaped by someone who witnessed it.

Pol Lt Gen Kamronwit yesterday assigned deputy MPB chief Thitiraj Nongharnpitak and Metropolitan Police Division 5 commander Suebsak Pansuya to handle the case.

Pol Maj Gen Thitiraj said the case would be a lesson for police officers to carefully verify the identify of people they arrest.

He vowed not to protect any officers who are found to have been negligent in their duties.

The investigation is expected to be straightforward as the case does not appear to be very complex, he added.

Pol Maj Gen Suebsak said Kritsana’s offence of drink driving is considered minor.

Police handling the case had to prosecute him in the court following his confession.

Inmates in Thai prisons are not allowed to have mobile phones. But this hasn’t stopped them smuggling them in; either over the walls or by bribing a guard. With the advance in technology, the latest phones not only have cameras but also Internet connectivity. This means that the prisoners can play on social media such as Facebook. The photo here was posted by one inmate at Lampang Prison. The Daily News newspaper also had other photos of people who were obviously in a prison cell. All of them heavily tattooed. The newspaper also gave his Facebook page which is still up. The pictures have all been deleted, but if you check his friends list, you will see at least three or four other people who are obviously inmates.

A couple of tips here for inmates. Your profile picture shouldn’t be of you in the prison. It’s a dead giveaway. Secondly, make your profile private for friends only. All of the ones I saw this morning were all open for anyone to browse. I am sure none of their friends reported them, but leaving your profile open means that any pictures of you can quickly be shared around the internet which is when you lose control. This story today of the prisoners in Lampang playing on Facebook is not an isolated case. I have seen this before. Many of the inmates just want to communicate with loved ones back home.

The search team comprised narcotic suppression police, soldiers and corrections department officials. Pol Col Chatree Paisalsilp, deputy commander of the Narcotic Suppression Bureau, and Prasert Yusupharp, the governor of the prison, led the raid.

The operation targeted Zone 2 of the prison where 841 major drug offenders are jailed. Many apprehended drug traffickers had said they received orders from prisoners in this zone.

Instead of finding any drugs or other illegal objects, the officials found a few bank passbooks recording savings worth about 150,000 baht, 6,000 baht in cash, mobile phone SIM cards, notebooks recording sums of money and phone numbers, and cough medicine.

The passbooks were buried near a bathroom. Officials will check if the cough medicine had been adulterated with drugs.

Mr Prasert, the prison governor, said prison searches had started on June 9 as ordered by the National Council for Peace and Order and officials seized 16 mobile phones, 0.5 grammes of crystal methamphetamine or “ice”,  and a number of sharpened steel rods.

He said he would do his best to block attempts to send prohibited objects to prisoners.

Top corrections Department officials should not continue in their posts if they fail to stop the drug trade in prisons, assistant Army chief General Paiboon Koomchaya said yesterday.

Paiboon, who is in charge of legal and judicial affairs of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), said he had received a list of 200-300 prisoners suspected of being involved in the drug trade. He said these prisoners faced punishment and might be relocated from the prisons.

Paiboon said he would tackle the drug problem in jails and restructure the food procurement system in the Corrections Department to prevent drugs and mobile phones and other banned items from being smuggled in by those who supplied food to prisons.

He was responding to reports that the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) officials and the Nonthaburi police had arrested Pongwit Luachauychok, deputy director of the Marketing Organisation for Farmers (MOF), on charges of taking bribes from a food company for a contract to supply food to prisons in Chumphon province.

Paiboon said the military had dispatched people to carry out intelligence work in the prison and provide information about illegal activities in jails. Since taking control, he said the NCPO has ordered prison raids across the country to crack down on vice.

He will also call a meeting of the Special Investigation Committee to decide whether to remove some committee members who might be suspected of obstructing case investigations. He added that the change of committee members would be made only if there were grounds for such allegations because the NCPO did not want to be seen as removing officials siding with the previous government.TOP CORRECTIONS Department officials should not continue in their posts if they fail to stop the drug trade in prisons, assistant Army chief General Paiboon Koomchaya said yesterday.

Paiboon, who is in charge of legal and judicial affairs of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), said he had received a list of 200-300 prisoners suspected of being involved in the drug trade. He said these prisoners faced punishment and might be relocated from the prisons.

Paiboon said he would tackle the drug problem in jails and restructure the food procurement system in the Corrections Department to prevent drugs and mobile phones and other banned items from being smuggled in by those who supplied food to prisons.

He was responding to reports that the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) officials and the Nonthaburi police had arrested Pongwit Luachauychok, deputy director of the Marketing Organisation for Farmers (MOF), on charges of taking bribes from a food company for a contract to supply food to prisons in Chumphon province.

Paiboon said the military had dispatched people to carry out intelligence work in the prison and provide information about illegal activities in jails. Since taking control, he said the NCPO has ordered prison raids across the country to crack down on vice.

He will also call a meeting of the Special Investigation Committee to decide whether to remove some committee members who might be suspected of obstructing case investigations. He added that the change of committee members would be made only if there were grounds for such allegations because the NCPO did not want to be seen as removing officials siding with the previous government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKNRjy1UitM

Inspired by true events, The Last Executioner is the story of Chavoret Jaruboon, the last person in Thailand whose job it was to execute by gun – a wild rock and roller, who took a “respectable” job to support the family he loved devotedly, then constantly tried to reconcile the good and bad karma that came from his decision. It is a story of life at its most beautiful and death at its most surreal. The movie will be released in Thailand on 3rd July 2014.

Lured by easy money, an escape from poverty or family pressure, thousands of women are locked up for drug offences in Thailand, which has one of the world’s highest rates of female imprisonment.

Mai, 27, was sentenced to three years in jail after she was caught with 20 “yaba” pills — a slang term for methamphetamine known locally as “crazy medicine” — used by tens of thousands of Thais from taxi drivers to students.

“The amount of yaba was more than was considered for personal use so I was charged with selling,” said Mai, whose boyfriend is also in prison for dealing methamphetamine.

She is serving her second stint behind bars in a prison in Ayutthaya north of Bangkok where she lives with her baby boy, and has no hope of early release in a country with one of the world’s strictest anti-drugs policies.

A three-year jail sentence for meth possession is routine in Thailand, where use of the illegal stimulant is rife.

Within Asia, the kingdom is second only to China in terms of methamphetamine seizures.

More than 95 million meth tablets were seized in Thailand in 2012, up almost five-fold from 2008, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Much of the region’s meth is produced in strife-torn border areas in neighbouring Myanmar and smuggled across the border.

Thailand saw nearly 196,000 methamphetamine-related arrests in 2012, the most in Asia, according to UNODC.

Sixty-nine Thai women were also arrested for drug smuggling overseas in the same year, compared with just three men, the UN agency said.

At the prison in Ayutthaya, the walls of the children’s room are covered with drawings.

But despite the flower beds that welcome visitors and the hair salon, life is no picnic with prisoners required to carry out cleaning and other tasks, said Mai, dressed in the same light blue uniform as the 650 other inmates.

The prisoners sew beads on T-shirts for a salary of just 100 baht ($3) a month, with the proceeds of the sales going towards the operating budget of the prison.

- ‘Still human beings’ -

In a country without a culture of socio-educational support for inmates, one Thai writer is trying to change her compatriots’ views of prison.

“We want the society to look at the prisoners as human beings. Everyone can make mistakes or be jailed as a scapegoat,” Orasom Suddhisakorn said.

Orasom leads writing workshops in prisons and has already published two collections of these stories, “Facekook” — “kook” meaning prison in Thai — that have sold several thousand copies.

The stories are familiar — of ordinary women sentenced to years in prison for a handful of yaba pills.

As a young penniless divorcee, one inmate wrote of how she sold the drug to raise her son, while another recounts how her foreign boyfriend manipulated and used her as a mule.

A third tells how she sold drugs to follow the tradition of her family, in which everyone, from her aunt to her mother, lived from meth trafficking.

- Remembering the past -

At one of the workshops, attended by about 20 inmates, 23-year-old Sawapa said writing “helps me to organise my thoughts”.

“It makes me think of the past, of my family, of how I lived,” she added.

Sawapa, who was jailed for possession of 30 yaba pills, recounts being led by a neighbour into small-time dealing while she was a student.

Her mother wants her to resume her studies and eventually take over the family grocery store. But her release date is not until 2018.

This tough treatment of small-time traffickers is one reason why Thailand has one of the world’s highest rates of women prisoners.

Roughly 42,000 women are behind bars in Thailand — about 14 percent of the total imprisoned population, according to the corrections department.

That compares with around nine percent for the United States, five percent for China and zero percent for Liechtenstein, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies.

Nearly half of the female inmates in Thailand are serving sentences for trafficking or possession of meth.

At the Ayutthaya jail, the figure is 80 percent, according to the prison director.

Orasom, the writer, is one of the rare voices to advocate a better support for prisoners.

But some other activists are calling for a reduction of prison terms for drugs, arguing that the harsh policy — which can result in decades in jail — has failed to curb dealing.

“People get 20, 30 or 40 years when it would be three years in other countries,” said Danthong Breen of rights group Union for Civil Liberty.

An inmate at Klongpai Central Prison has died after 20 condoms filled with crystal methamphetamine, or “ice”, burst in his stomach, according to prison director Aree Chaloeysook.

Mr Aree said the inmate, identified as Anukoon Pasookf, had been sentenced to life in prison on drug offence and was fighting his case in the Appeal Court.

An initial post-mortem examination found Anukoon, 33, hid 20 condoms containing a combined 165 grammes of ice drugs with an estimated street value of 8-10 million baht. The death was believed to have been caused by the bursting of some of the condoms in his stomach, Mr Aree said.

After searching his cell, authorities found another condom with crystal meth thought to have been discharged from his body.

Mr Aree said Anukoon was taken to testify before the Saraburi Provincial Court on Wednesday and prison guards performed regular security checks on him but found no irregularities before escorting him back to his cell.

Officials closely monitored him the next day after Anukoon did not come out from his cell to eat nor join other inmates in general activities. The inmate was later found dead in his cell on Friday morning.

Mr Aree believed Anukoon swallowed the drug while being taken to court on Tuesday and authorities were investigating further how it happened.

Mr Aree said an x-ray machine would be installed at the Klongpai Central Prison in August to detect illegal items in the inmates’ body.

An inmate was recently caught hiding three mobile phones up his rectum. He finally confessed to guards as he suffered severe stomach pains and asked for urgent medical aid, the prison commander said. The minimum selling price of a smuggled mobile phone in prison was 800,000 baht.

Trouble-making inmates from across Thailand are being transferred to the country’s only jail with a “super-maximum” security facility.

The Corrections Department also plans to set up three more “supermax” zones like the one at Khao Bin Prison in Ratchaburi in a bid to accommodate all misbehaving inmates and ensure that they lose their bad connections and, thus, their negative influence.

The reasons inmates get sent to the prison include drug trafficking, using cell phones or seriously intimidating fellow inmates.

“I think if we have ‘supermax’ facilities to accommodate about 1,000 trouble-making inmates, we should be able to end many problems,” Khao Bin Prison chief Yossapon Sutham said in an exclusive interview with The Nation.

The supermax zone at Khao Bin Prison can hold 500 inmates.

Recent news reports revealed that some prisoners continue to arrange drug deals from behind bars after obtaining cell phones through bribery and influence.

“To get a cell phone, some inmates have agreed to pay up to Bt3 million. To get a SIM card, some inmates have agreed to offer Bt800,000,” Yossapon said.

He disclosed that some inmates outside Khao Bin Prison’s supermax zone once used cell phones.

“But I have already launched a serious crackdown and pursued action against suspicious officials,” he said.

Yossapon remains sure that no one has snuck a cell-phone into the supermax zone.

“Before any person is allowed to walk into the zone, he or she must undergo body scanning. There’s no exemption. This rule applies to officials and the warden chief too,” he said.

He added that SIM card-detecting devices and security cameras were also in place.

“Officials monitor inmates round the clock with the help of 360 security cameras too,” he said.

When the ‘supermax’ facility opened last year, only troublemakers from the Khao Bin Prison were sent there. However, authorities now agree that it will be easier to control and reform inmates if trouble-makers are separated.

Kan, 33, said he was initially locked up in the Ubon Ratchathani Prison on a drug-related conviction.

He said he had managed to get into an influential gang there and got a cell-phone.

“Because of that I was sent to solitary detention at the supermax zone,” he said.

Unlike general prisons, the supermax does not allow inmates to walk around and they can’t use money. Neither can they accept food or items brought by families or friends.

There is no coffee and smoking is banned. Only direct relatives can “visit” via a video-conference system that officials can listen to.

Inmates are allowed only one hour of exercise a week.

“We have already had 287 inmates inside the supermax zone,” Yossapon said. Uan, who was jailed for attempted murder, said officials threw him in the supermax because he had often had brawls at Chon Buri Prison.

“I am under huge stress because I can’t contact anyone. I am allowed to leave my cell only when my lawyer arrives,” he said.

Kan said the situation at the supermax facility was so stressful that he would never want to come back.

“I even think I could die from stress here,” he said.

‘Supermax’ unit head Chanwit Karanan said inmates often shouted to ease their stress and some even banged their heads against the wall.

Parakorn Daengsomboon, who monitors inmates via CCTV, said he could zoom in closely on inmates.

“So if anything goes wrong, officials can rush in,” he said.

Chavoret Jaruboon was the last person in Thailand whose job it was to execute by gun. A wild rock and roller in his youth who played the GI bars during the Vietnam War, he took a job as a prison guard to support the family he loved with undying devotion. He spent the rest of his life struggling to reconcile the good and bad karma that came from that decision and the 55 lives he took in 19 years as an executioner at the infamous Bang Kwang Central Prison, aka “The Bangkok Hilton.”

On Chavoret’s 11th birthday, coinciding with JFK’s assassination, his father, a teacher, bought him his first guitar and he immediately started playing Elvis riffs. Later in the day, they went to see a fortune teller who made the prediction of karma that shapes the rest of his life and the lives of all those around him: “Your fate is to work with death.”

In the 1960s, while playing manic rock and roll at a bar aptly named “Sorry About That,” he meets Tew, a local girl, with whom he falls in love and will share the rest of his life. Facing the archetypal dilemma of the artist who feels the need to do something “respectable,” Chavoret trades his guitar for a prison guard’s baton, although rock and roll remains near and dear to him until the day he dies.

After fourteen years of working his way up through the prison ranks and impressing the authorities with his solid work ethic, sense of duty, and ‘jai yen’ (coolness), Chavoret is offered the job of head executioner when the old executioner suddenly retires. Although haunted by the prophesy from his youth, especially in the form of the Spirit, a good-looking, well-dressed guy who seems to show up everywhere in Chavoret’s life, he accepts the job – after all, it pays an extra 2,000 baht per execution. Chavoret is extremely professional – almost nonchalant – at his first execution.

Chavoret continues to live a divided life. One, some would say, as a killer. The other as a devoted family man whose music is always his saving grace. His blind faith in the judicial process, his duty, and most of all his karma seems to allow him to keep the two lives separated, with the help of very prescribed personal rituals before, during, and after each execution. But sometimes the wall between them begins to crack. He is uncharacteristically shaken up by his first and only execution of a woman, who in a surreal and perhaps prophetic scene, dies twice.

His life continues as a weird see-saw between karma/killing on the one hand, and karma/family life on the other. He continues to execute with precision and purpose, yet he also enjoys nights out of karaoke and German food with his wife. He can coolly pull the trigger on the same day he plays with his granddaughter, whom he absolutely adores.

Through it all, the Spirit continues to dog him, appearing in perfectly normal settings, more and more with two other seemingly common guys. He can never escape his karma.

When Thailand changes from execution by gun to lethal injection, Chavoret is honored at a turnover ceremony at which 319 balloons are released representing the freedom of the souls of all the prisoners executed by gun over more than 70 years. After declining to be on the new execution team, Chavoret becomes head of the prison’s Foreign Affairs Division where he gets to do what he enjoys and is good at. He becomes a minor celebrity – writing books, attending embassy parties, doing endless print and TV interviews, educating students, and even appearing on a TV game show, a Thai version of the old American show, “To Tell the Truth.”

He becomes a Buddhist monk for a short time, during which he experiences a series of visions and epiphanies which mirror his inner conflicts and his own health. Soon after he decides to retire, and he and Tew look forward to a new life of freedom and travel. On one trip, he collapses with terrible stomach pains. His daughter Chulee forces him to see a doctor who ultimately gives the diagnosis of intestinal cancer. He braves on, not wanting to spend money on his treatment that could go to this family. The day his granddaughter asks him to play guitar but he can no longer control his fingers is the beginning of the end.

On his deathbed in the hospital, in excruciating pain, he is visited by the two men who have been appearing to him with the Spirit. They are the tragi-comedy team, traditional in Thai culture, of Death’s assistants (Yomatoot). When they drag him to the place where prisoners would write their last statements and tell him to write how he wants to be remembered, Chavoret writes “Husband, Father, Musician” but not “Executioner.”

In a penultimate scene, Yama (the Spirit and Death) and his two assistants come to weigh Chavoret’s Boon and Baap (Merit and Sin) while Chulee desperately rushes to the hospital after getting a call at midnight. When she gets there, the two assistants are already taking Chavoret through a red door like the one between the prison and the Wat (temple) that executed prisoners were passed through. Chulee tries to stop them, but she can’t.

At the end of this story of life at its most beautiful and death at its most surreal, Chavoret’s karma hangs in the balance.

FROM CHANCE MEETINGS TO A SCRIPT

Bringing the story of “The Last Executioner” to the screen has been almost as strange as the story itself.

In his January 2013 cover story for “Citylife” Magazine, scriptwriter Don Linder wrote:

“I first met Chavoret in April 2007 when he was part of a panel discussion on prison life at the FCCT (Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand). The others on the panel were Susan Aldous, known for her work with slum children and prisoners at Bang Kwang Central Prison, and the Thai owner of a travel agency who served time for money laundering. During the evening, my overwhelming impression of Chavoret was that he was so normal. Watching him sitting there in a polo shirt and Dockers – no black hood and scythe – he looked like anyone I might sit next to in Starbucks.

“When it came to the Q and A, I was surprised at how softball the questions were for the FCCT crowd. I ended up asking the last question: “You seem like a nice guy and all, but how did you reconcile your work with your Buddhism? What did you tell your family? Did you go out for beers with the guys after executions?” (It turns out he did).

“I now know that Chavoret had answered variants of these questions a thousand times before. His answers focused on karma. It was his karma to do this job, and he was compassionately helping the prisoners to achieve their karma. It was his duty, after all. At the time, this all smacked of a well devised construction of denial, or worse, an “I was just following orders” defense. I wanted to know more, so I introduced myself and asked for an interview, which his editor arranged.

“A week later, I was in Chavoret’s office at Bang Kwang’s Foreign Affairs Division which he now headed. Of course, I’d read his autobiography by then, so I knew of his background. Nevertheless, it was still very weird when, without any explanation, this 59-year-old executioner sat across his desk from me and for 30 minutes played air guitar and sang Beatles, Elvis, and Ventures songs. Then, we talked. And talked… for almost 5 hours.”

Several years later, Tom Waller (director/producer) and Don, who didn’t know each other, were seated across from each other at a mutual friend’s 50th birthday party. How the conversation got around to executions is anybody’s guess – perhaps it was karma — but on that night the film was born. Tom had always wanted to do a film or the story, and Don had the personal interactions with Chavoret to make it interesting. After many months of interviews with Chavoret’s family, childhood friends, Buddhist monk confidante, and even the drummer and his 94-year-old mother who formed Chavoret’s first band, the script was ready and filming commenced.

DIRECTOR

TOM WALLER was born in Bangkok in 1974 to a Thai Buddhist mother and Irish Catholic father. He has been working as a film producer and director for over 10 years in Thailand, with notable credits BUTTERFLY MAN (2002), GHOST OF MAE NAK (2005), THE ELEPHANT KING (2006) and SOI COWBOY (2008) which was selected in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, amongst the acclaimed titles produced through his production company De Warrenne Pictures, which he founded after graduating from the Northern Film School in Leeds, England with a PGDip in Film Production in 1996.

In 2011, Waller returned to his passion for directing with the award-winning Thai language mystery thriller MINDFULNESS AND MURDER, based on the novel by Nick Wilgus and starring Vithaya Pansringarm as Father Ananda, an ex-cop Buddhist monk who investigates corruption and murder in his monastery in Bangkok. Theatrically released in Thailand by M Pictures, MINDFULNESS AND MURDER was nominated for 5 Thai National Film Awards (Subhanahongsa) in 2012, including for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. The film won Best Supporting Actor for Wannasak Sirilar. The film also won Best Director for Tom Waller and Best Actor for Vithaya Pansringarm at ThrillSpy International Film Festival. THE LAST EXECUTIONER will be Waller’s second Thai language feature film.

CREDITS AS DIRECTOR
2014 THE LAST EXECUTIONER
2011 MINDFULNESS AND MURDER
1997 MONK DAWSON

CREDITS AS PRODUCER
2013 SECRET SHARER by Peter Fudakowski
2013 NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR by Isaac Florentine
2011 ELEPHANT WHITE by Prachya Pinkaew
2010 THE PRINCE AND ME: THE ELEPHANT ADVENTURE by Catherine Cyran
2008 SOI COWBOY by Thomas Clay (Cannes Un Certain Regard)
2006 THE ELEPHANT KING by Seth Grossman
2005 GHOST OF MAE NAK by Mark Duffield
2002 BUTTERFLY MAN by Kaprice Kea

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I first read about Chavoret Jaruboon in a Bangkok Post obituary in May 2012. What came across to me was that he was clearly an ordinary man who led an extraordinary life. For a man who wanted to be a rock’n’roll singer, becoming a prison executioner would seem like an unlikely vocation. This is a man who went from holding a guitar to holding a gun – it was as if at times, he was living a double life. In his later years he had even become a minor celebrity in Thailand, as a guest on gameshows and chat shows, celebrated for performing his duties in taking the lives of 55 condemned prisoners.

It was perhaps for Chavoret, fame for all the wrong reasons. Yet Chavoret had led his life with a sense of duty, pride and diligence for his job, not once questioning why or how the condemned came to end up on death row. How does a man given with such a task of taking so many lives reconcile with his karma? This was initially what interested me most in making a film inspired by the story of his life.

However, after speaking to his widow and family, I realized there were different layers to this man. Not only was he a dutiful servant of the state, but he was also a wonderful husband and a loving family man. After all, raising his family in many ways, was the reason he entered the prison service in the first place. It paid more bills than playing the guitar would, but working at Bang Kwang prison, ultimately, led to living with demons inside his head.

Often troubled by these ‘spirits‘ that haunted him, Chavoret turned to monks for moral guidance, seeking to make amends for his acts of killing. But it is as if his karma came around to punish him in the end, with cancer that took his own life after enduring much suffering. Don Linder’s screenplay tells the story of Chavoret’s extraordinary life with much panache, illustrating his inner turmoil and conflicted efforts to reconcile with his karma.

SCREENPLAY
DON LINDER is a writer, editor, photographer, and academic who has travelled, lived, and written on five continents. A native-born New Yorker, he did his undergrad and graduate studies in Comparative Literature at Columbia University where he minored in Film Studies under Andrew Sarris the noted proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism.

Don’s work and travels have included director of English programs in the U.S., the Canary Islands, China, and Thailand; writing program director for Poets & Writers, Inc., the State University of New York, and the North Carolina Arts Council; jazz and blues radio host in New York City and radio lecturer in China; New York City taxi driver; plus travel and culture writer worldwide, notably in Mongolia and Morocco. Don has written and acted for Japanese cable TV and taught scriptwriting in Egypt, Brazil, and the U.S. “The Last Executioner” is his first feature-length film.

After ten years in Bangkok, Don now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with his wife, Lida.

An early morning raid of Bang Jo Prison turned up no drugs or contraband today.

More than 90 officers, led by Phuket Prison Chief Rapin Nichanon, began the search at 5:30am.

Each of the 68 inmates was searched, as were their lockers, sleeping quarters, the infirmary and other areas where officers believed contraband could be hidden.

“The facility was drug-free, and we found no mobile phones or other banned items,” said Chief Rapin.

“All the inmates were tested for drugs. None of them tested positive.”

Prisoners at Bang Jo are searched and undergo drug tests every two to three months, Mr Rapin said.

“The inmates had no idea the inspection was going to happen. We are definitely happy with the results,” he added.

A similar inspection of Phuket Prison’s 2,870 male and female inmates on June 9 also failed to uncover any drugs or contraband. Of the 300 inmates randomly selected for drug testing there, none tested positive, allowing the facility to maintain the “White Prison” ranking it has had since May 2012.

Phuket’s main prison, though drug-free, remains severely overcrowded. Built for 800 inmates, it now contains nearly 3,000. Construction of a new facility is slated for next year at the Bang Jo location in Thalang.

A man accused of sexually assaulting his seven-year-old stepdaughter has been beaten to death in prison, police say, a day after he insisted he was innocent.

Prasin Nunkaew, 41, was arrested yesterday and charged with raping his stepdaughter on 6 July at a rubber farm in Trang district. Mr. Prasin’s wife filed the complaint with police.

In a press conference held yesterday, police said Mr. Prasin disputed the charge and insisted on his innocence. He was later transferred to Trang Remand Prison to await trial.

However, this morning the prison officials discovered that Mr. Prasin had been beaten to death by fellow inmates in his holding cell after a fight broke out, said Pol.Cpt. Methee Pinyoprakarn, an officer at Trang Police Station.

Pol.Cpt. Methee claimed that the fight was not related to Mr. Prasin’s rape charge, but failed to provide an explanation for the beating. He said the police are investigating the incident. 

The incident came at a time when Thai society and media are gripped by the story of 13-year-old girl who was raped and murdered on a night train. An employee of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) has been arrested and police say he has confessed to raping the girl in a sleeping car before throwing her body overboard. 

The Corrections Department is considering shutting down Thailand’s only prison for political prisoners, in Bangkok’s Lak Si area, two years after its highly publicised opening.

The proposal to close the Lak Si temporary detention centre was mooted by prison chief Sorasith Chongcharoen and is now in the hands of newly appointed department director-general Witthaya Suriyawong.

Mr Witthaya did not throw out the plan and said he would make the decision after settling other matters.

The department refurbished a building of what was once the Bang Khen private police school and turned it into the prison for political offenders.

It was opened on Jan 16, 2012, amid criticism that the then Yingluck Shinawatra government wanted to favour red-shirt members fighting charges relating to the 2010 violent rallies by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship.

An official at the Lak Si temporary prison said it had only 22 inmates now, down from 47 when it opened in a ceremony presided over by then justice minister Pracha Promnok.

Each prisoner is serving a jail term of at least 20 years, including those found guilty by the court of burning the provincial halls in Ubon Ratchathani and Udon Thani after the army cracked down on the rallies in Bangkok on May 19, 2010.

The department deploys 10 prison staff and 15 police officers to safeguard the place, which requires several million baht to run, added the official, who requested anonymity.

All prisoners will serve their remaining sentences in their home provinces after it is shut, the official added.

The priority of the department is on the appropriate shuffling of officials.

Justice permanent secretary Chanchao Chaiyanukit on Wednesday signed an order to transfer 13 senior officials at the department and some prison chiefs to new positions.

Mr Witthaya signed another order to transfer 46 mid-level officials at prisoners across the country to new positions.

A drone equipped with a video camera and two mobile phones were intercepted by guards at Khao Bin prison, widely known to have the best security protection system of all prisons in Thailand.

Danai Supsin, director of the Prisoner Counsel and Development Division, said on Tuesday that prison staff earlier received a tip-off about people trying to smuggle prohibited items into Khao Bin prison.

During last night’s surveillance, the guards found the video camera-equipped drone on a tree branch inside the prison compound. Two Nokia cell phones, four SIM cards, two Bluetooth devices, an integrated circuit and a pair of earphones were strapped to the unmanned aerial vehicle.

“If the two phones reached the hands of inmates, they would cost several millions of baht,” Mr Danai said.

He said the drone controller had escaped after accidentally getting the vehicle in the tree.

Police will check with drone sellers to search for potential suspects who know how to use drones, he added.

A disabled man claims he was beaten bloody by Thai prison guards after he was left starving and penniless on a beach.

Brain-damaged William Crook says he was flung in jail alongside murderers and terrorists after overstaying his visa.

He had been sleeping rough and living out of his suitcase for months after a cash machine swallowed his bank card and he lost his plane ticket home.

The Foreign Office are to investigate the Glasgow man’s claim he was beaten with sticks by his captors.

William – who was left with paralysis after an attack 15 years ago – said: “I had heard about Thai prisons being ruthless but this was awful. There was nowhere to sleep and it was very hostile.

“I’m paralysed down one side but we had to lie curled up on the floor. I tried to tell them I was disabled but they didn’t do anything.

“I made a friend who told me to stay away from certain people – he said people die there all the time.

“One day, I didn’t want to get my hair cut because I don’t like people seeing my scars from my injury. I was dragged out by two guards and beaten with sticks. They burst my head open.

“I was made to feel like the worst criminal but I had only overstayed by about 10 days and that wasn’t my fault.

“I didn’t know if anyone was going to help me.”

William, 43, is now back home in Shawlands after his mum Margaret, 61, paid for his flight.

He had lived in Thailand for four years and had flown back to see his girlfriend at New Year.

The British Consulate first tried to help William after he was found burnt and dehydrated on Pattaya beach six weeks ago.

But when he went to the police to admit his visa had expired, they kept him in custody in various police stations before moving him to prison 30 miles away.

He stayed there until he was sent to a detention centre in Bangkok for deportation and flown home with a minder.

He is struggling to come to terms with his ordeal. He said: “Every time I close my eyes, my brain is back on that beach. I can’t sleep properly.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We take allegations of mistreatment in detention very seriously and will assist British nationals by raising any allegations with relevant authorities, providing we have the consent of the British national involved.”

Prisons in Thailand stage Muay Thai (a form of kickboxing) matches between inmates and foreign fighters to entertain prisoners and to promote good health. The fighters can also reduce their their sentences, and perhaps even win freedom, by doing well in bouts.

Getty Images photographer Borja Sanchez-Trillo visited Klong Pai prison in Nakhon Ratchasima to document the event known as “Prison Fight”

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Nigeria’s ambassador to Thailand, Mr. Chudi Okafor, has revealed that over 500 Nigerians are in Thai prisons for drug trafficking.

This came to the fore when the diplomat paid a private courtesy visit to Anambra State Governor, Willie Obiano, at the Governor’s lodge, in Amawbia.

Issues concerning agriculture and the challenges of drug trafficking amongst Nigerian youths, who are serving various jail terms in Asian countries, were discussed.

Relaying the outcome of the meeting with the Ambassador to the press, the Governor said that agricultural intervention in the areas of rice, cassava and maize production will come from Thailand through the diplomat’s assistance.

Also, on the issue of mitigating the challenge of Nigerians in Thai prisons, he revealed that there is an ongoing process termed Prisoner Transfer Arrangement, whereby prisoners who must have served certain number of years in jail will be transferred from the foreign prison to their homelands.

Thailand, is the first country to start the process as they do not execute drug traffickers unlike other Asian countries.

Mr. Okafor stressed that drug offense is not a minor offense and advised parents to always be critical of the activities of their children, especially those abroad, to ensure that their conduct does not destroy them or shame to their fatherland.

The Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR) yesterday called on authorities to improve living conditions for female inmates in overcrowded prisons.

The call was made during a meeting with the National Human Rights Commission and the Justice Ministry.

“We found most prisons hosting female inmates, especially resting shelters, are holding prisoners in numbers between two and six times over-capacity,” said Kulapa Vajanasara, an IPSR researcher.

The IPSR sent staff to visit more than 10 prisons last year as part of a study pushing for reform in the female prison system, said Kritaya Archavanitkul, one of the study team’s members.

A Corrections Department regulation says each prisoner is entitled to a living space of at least 2.25 square metres, but the IPSR found available space was far smaller, she said.

In June there were 44,204 female inmates in jails across the country in female-only prisons, correctional institutions for drug addicts and mixed prisons.

The IPSR visited a prison in the South and found as many as 45 female inmates packed into single rooms.

A resting shelter where prisoners spent 14 hours a day was similarly overcrowded.

In some prisons, extra floors were added inside cells.

IPSR officials found during a visit to a northern prison that 150 female inmates were forced to share one toilet.

“Long police investigations and court procedures have led to overcrowding in prisons as facilities are used to detain people awaiting trial,” Ms Kulapa said.

Chanchao Chaiyanukit, acting permanent secretary for justice, conceded that overcrowding was a serious issue.

He said 78% of the female inmates were jailed for drug-related offences. The state’s policy on narcotics crimes has led to large numbers of offenders being sent to prison, exacerbating problems of overcrowding, he added.

The IPSR proposed the Justice Ministry and the Corrections Department introduce a “ticket-to-leave” policy.

Under the scheme, prisoners could be set free after serving three-quarters or two-thirds of their jail terms for good or excellent behaviour.

The IPSR estimated some 50,000 prisoners would be eligible for this privilege if the policy was adopted.

Other ideas to ease overcrowding include putting prisoners convicted for petty crimes on probation; assigning them to community service; and putting them under house arrest.

A suggestion by the National Health Security Office to use prisons only for detaining dangerous criminals is another option, the IPSR said.

According to the IPSR study published in June, the United States has the world’s highest number of females behind bars (201,200), followed by China (84,600), Russia (59,200), Thailand (44,204) and Brazil (35,596).

In terms of population, Thailand comes first with 68.2 female inmates in every 100,000 people.

The Corrections Department has transferred the commanders of six major prisons after a large number of mobile phones and other prohibited items were discovered during prison raids.

Department chief Witthaya Suriyawong said yesterday he signed an order on Monday to transfer the six prison chiefs.

They are Phitsanulok Central Prison commander Chartpol Arpasat, who has been moved to assist work at the department as inspector-general, Ayutthaya Central Prison commander Thawatchai Chaiwat, who will become chief of Phitsanulok Central Prison, and Ayutthtaya Provincial Prison chief Pakdi Tangtham, who will take up the commander post at Ayutthaya Central Prison.

Inspector-general Narong Yongnarongdetkul has been made commander of Ayutthaya Prison, Bangkok Remand Prison chief Sorasit Chongcharoen will become chief of Bang Kwang Central Prison and Bang Kwang Central Prison chief Ayut Sinthopphan will become chief of Bangkok Remand Prison.

The officials have been ordered to assume the new posts within seven days.

Mr Witthaya said the rotation of senior officials was designed to plug loopholes in some prisons which had failed to stop prohibited items, particularly mobile phones, from being smuggled inside their compounds.

He cited the many smuggled mobile phones found in a raid on Phitsanulok Central Prison as an example.

An earlier transfer of prison chiefs saw Pathikhom Wongsuwan, a younger brother of National Council for Peace and Order adviser Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, become chief of the Khlong Prem Central Prison, a source said.

Mr Pathikhom was chief of Ayutthaya Central Prison before replacing the commander of Khlong Prem Central Prison.