Seventeen Years in Thai Prison

[Richard Barrow]

SEVENTEEN-YEAR THAI JAIL ORDEAL IS OVER
Dorset Echo, UK - 16th May 2007
By Joanna Codd

A FORMER Poole man has been released from a Thai jail after serving more than 17 years for a crime he says he did not commit.

Alan John Davies, 66, arrived at Heathrow Airport to be met by friends, well-wishers and representatives of Fair Trials Abroad, the organisation involved in the case since being alerted by the Daily Echo in 1995.

Businessman Mr Davies lived in Wellington Road, Parkstone, in the late 1980s, when he left the UK for Thailand. He intended to visit his elderly mother in Poole in May 1990, but never saw her again.

Instead he was plunged into a nightmare when he and two other men were arrested at a Bangkok bank in January 1990 and charged with conspiracy to smuggle heroin. From the outset, Mr Davies insisted he had been framed.

He was tried without the services of a court interpreter - although he could not at that stage speak the Thai language - and sentenced to death in 1994. He was kept shackled in heavy leg irons until the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1996.

Mr Davies told supporters via his website: "It is not possible to describe just how I felt when I boarded the plane and departed from Thailand after spending 17 years, four months and 15 days in various hell hole prisons and knowing... that I was at long last free."
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He added that he was feeling conflicting emotions, including relief, anger, weariness, and bitterness. "At least a quarter of my life, if I live beyond 70, has been stolen from me," he said.

Mr Davies, who suffered at least one stroke during his captivity, was due to speak at a press conference in the House of Commons this morning. He was expected to go into details of alleged corruption by British and Thai officials.

Catherine Wolthuizen, chief executive of Fair Trials Abroad, said Mr Davies was now looking into the possibility of legal action. "At the moment he is adjusting to life in the UK. He's in remarkably good health, but even someone with such strength of character and optimism is going to find it difficult."

She added Mr Davies had been most looking forward to sleeping in a bed after spending the last 17 years on concrete floors. "Conditions were very difficult. John has talked about having to sleep sitting up because the cells were so overcrowded.

"These places are very basic indeed with extremely limited medical care."

[RobinVirant]

Can't eait to hear his side of the story, does anyone have information about the case from 1990?

[Richard Barrow]

Here is a report on his website:

Hello everyone. It's not possible for me to describe just how I felt at that moment when I boarded the plane at the new international airport just out of Bangkok and departed from Thailand (after spending 17 years 4 months and 15 days in various Thai hell hole prisons) and knowing that it was the end; it was over and I was at long last FREE. Free to get my train back on the tracks and to start chuckety chucking my way into the challenges of beginning the new life and all that lay ahead.

But, apart from the multitude of other and conflicting emotions like: tremendous relief, seething anger, surging anticipation, growing optimism, gut wrenching disgust, unbounded gratitude to some, immense humiliation, cautious excitement, nagging fear, an almost debilitating weariness, and yes, a gripping bitterness too, I can say with certainly that it felt pretty damned good.

However at least 1/4 of my life (if I live beyond 70) had been stolen from me by a bunch of crooks whose only consideration was the extra cash they would have in their pockets for their efforts. What the ramifications for me of their scheming and greed were to be, they didn't give a hoot. But they were experts at it and I discovered that they had done the same thing to others many times before.

During my years of confinement I met a lot of people who had been convicted of crimes that they had committed, and almost to a man they looked on their lot as a deserved and just result of their stupidity; I don't remember one ever complaining that they were being victimised needlessly. However I also met quite a few others who, like myself, had committed no crime at all, but who had also been convicted and given harsh sentences. They were almost all terribly bitter at having had their lives and those of their families and loved ones disrupted, and in some cases completely destroyed, and many developed a powerful lust for revenge.

My powerful lust for something like that really only began to grow when I discovered back in 2002 (after I had appointed a high caliber Thai lawyer to investigate the potential of a retrial petition) that initially, prior to my conviction, the determining judges had decided that I was innocent and planned to acquit me along with one of my case partners; that they had reversed that decision when a British diplomat - stationed at the British Embassy in Bangkok at the time - had intervened and provided several documents, on British Government stationary, that stated falsely that my arrest was the result of a well organised and executed joint effort between British and Thai police, and that I had several outstanding arrest warrants relating to drugs trafficking awaiting me in the UK (including one that involved the alleged import of 140 kilograms of heroin into the UK); that the British government was watching my trial very carefully and expected a conviction and an appropriate penalty. All of which was a total fabrication and was tendered by same diplomat, unbeknownst to his superiors, for the sole purpose of sharing in the huge rewards up for grabs on conviction...

No conviction, no rewards you see.

But my lawyer also discovered that, once it was known what had actually happened, an official cover-up had also been initiated by other British government officials, and that the offending documents along with other critical exhibits, which proved I had been the victim of a travesty of justice on conviction, had been criminally removed from the court files.

Of course there was Thai official corruption involved in the initial sting, and the court transcripts are all the evidence that is needed to prove that. But when one of my own countrymen - one being paid from the British people's pockets - stooped so low out of greed, and without a single thought of what tremendous damage his evil actions would cause me, and knowing that after he had left the scene (due to the exposure and in-house investigation of his involvement in other criminal activity whilst in his official position), and that a certain faction of the British government compounded his diabolical deceit by attempting to cover it up, I became consumed with a loathing and a burning inner rage such that I had never before experienced, and that I realised after some time could only be sated with retaliation and retribution.

That determination however became known to the British FCO and from then on, and right up to the day I stepped on that plane, they obstructed my every attempt be seek justice; to be vindicated; to be released via other mechanisms that were available to me; Going so far as to deliberately sabotage mine, and others' tireless and extensive efforts.

But, though they think they do, they don't really know who they are dealing with, and I will retaliate; I will expose them all for their corruption, malfeasance and crimes, and regardless of what I eventually achieve, and though I can never replace what they have stolen from me, I will be avenged.

A very good friend of mine, Sebastian Williams, has - with my full authority - done a splendid job of putting my story, from beginning to end (and as horrifying in places as it is) down in print for all who have an interest in the truth to see just how the powers, that we are forced to live beneath as normal people, manipulate things to suite their own agenda, and regardless of the human rights and legal rights of those they consider to be their lessors.

I hope all of these claims are investigated and anyone acting criminally will be brought to justice.

Some links:

http://www.alanjohndavies.bravehost.com/index.html
http://www.sebastian-williams.com/ (author of biography)

Looks like there will be at least two biographies soon.

[RobinVirant]

Thanks Richard, I've seen some of these diplomats at work, one used to assist a pimp to recruit girls to go to various british colonies and the UK, I mean how many wives is one allowed?
Oh well, lets hope he get's what he's after, for mine it would be 17 years for the guy in Argentina, or Burma, heard they were pretty good.

[Khun Don]

Some Extra Info on this story:

Man's 17-year Thai prison 'hell'

The longest-serving British prisoner overseas has returned to the UK after serving 17 years in Thai jails - despite maintaining his innocence.
Alan John Davies, 65, from Blackpool, Lancashire, was convicted of trying to sell a large amount of heroin to a police informer in Thailand.

Mr Davies was sentenced to death after a trial in September 1994, a term later reduced to 25 years in jail.

Fair Trials Abroad say he was the victim of a "miscarriage of justice".

Mr Davies, who previously lived in Poole, Dorset, arrived back at Heathrow on Saturday after being released from a Bangkok prison on 8 May.

He said: "It's more of a relief than anything. At last I'm away from there.

"That part of my life is over. When it happened I never thought it would go on this long."

"I'm happy and gradually getting round to seeing and speaking to all my friends who helped me."

Catherine Wolthuizen, chief executive of Fair Trials Abroad, said Mr Davies was the longest-serving British prisoner overseas.

"He was in prison for 17 years," said Ms Wolthuizen.

"There were a number of very severe anomalies in John's arrest and subsequent trial.

"There were severe problems in how his applications for pardons were handled and also what we conceived to be very worrying irregularities in evidence and documentation provided by an official attached to the British Embassy.

"We believe his case is a miscarriage of justice. Lawyers working on his case wrote on his behalf attesting to that."

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said its staff had done all they could to help Mr Davies.

"Since his arrest and detention in 1990 consular staff have visited Mr Davies in prison on a regular basis," a spokeswoman said.

"Consular staff have provided a welfare role. We supported two appeals for clemency on the grounds of Mr Davies' ill health."

The spokeswoman added that the FCO could not interfere or become involved in another country's judicial process.

Mr Davies left Blackpool in January 1988 and was living in Thailand and working for a firm organising work contracts when he was implicated in a drug supply plot.

He was shackled with heavy leg irons for two years while on death row in the high-security Bangkwang prison in Nonthaburi.

Mr Davies was later transferred to Klong Prem prison in Bangkok and said his wife died in while he was in jail.

Describing the conditions he said: "It was a hell-hole. You understand that 10% of the prison population die every year - about 5,000 prisoners."

Mr Davies survived a stroke in prison and an infection which almost led to his foot being amputated.

"I survived because a lot of people helped me from the UK," he added.

"That is what kept me going. If you are on your own there you get depressed, some take drugs, you have to cope."

Mr Davies will mark his 66th birthday on Thursday and was planning to spend time with friends on Saturday.

BBC News on-line

Photo: Fair Trials Abroad

[paul_au]

even if he was guilty, 2 years is a long enought for such a minor crime in my opinion.

[RobinVirant]

Richard,
I've just read the two limks, and boy, mind blowing, the man certainly has my admiration for keepinh it all together.
Probably better than Papillion, because he was innocent.
I hope he nails those cops, officials, and judges somehow. I just cannot understand how someone can be so vicious to another person, for no reason other than money.