117 Village No. 3, Nonthaburi Road 1, Suan Yai Subdistrict, Mueang Nonthaburi District, Nonthaburi Province. Better to not have to present this handle to a Bangkok taxi driver. These are the indicators for the central jail of Bang Kwang, one of the most harmful prisons in the world and the jail in which Daniel Sancho wouldn’t wish to find yourself if he is convicted.
This jail is positioned about 7 kilometers north of Bangkok, on the banks of the Chao Phraya River as it passes via the province of Nonthaburi. It is the jail occupied by the condemned to loss of life and sentenced to lengthy sentences, particularly for drug trafficking crimes. Paradoxical: proper subsequent to the constructing is the Bang Phraek Tai temple.
The ‘Hilton’ or “the nice tiger”
The penitentiary heart is often known as ‘the Hilton’ after an Australian miniseries of the identical title. Pure irony: Bang Kwang’s are cells of about 4 sq. meters with between 8 and 10 prisoners every. But her prisoners confer with her fairly as “the nice tiger”, as a result of of the method she devours her prisoners.
“As quickly as I set foot, they put chains on me. Not the ones you see on tv, these They weigh 4 kilos and had been crushed at my ankles by the officers with a hammer,” Colin Martin narrated in his autobiographical guide, Welcome to hell: A person’s combat for all times at the Bangkok Hilton. He is aware of what he’s speaking about: he spent a decade in jail.
8,000 prisoners in a jail for 3,500
Books and documentaries have described the harshness of the “Bangkok Hilton.” They embody complaints of torture, abuse of energy and corruption by the guards. The state of affairs has been identified by human rights organizations and their requests have been met with unfulfilled guarantees from successive administrations to enhance circumstances. The jail is, for instance, on Amnesty International’s watch record.
“The prisoners are overcrowded, typically there are dozens and even lots of of prisoners in a single cell. Until 2013, prisoners wore shackles“, not in order that they would not transfer, however in order that they would not run or kick,” Adrián Foncillas, correspondent in Thailand, stated a 12 months in the past. Bang Kwang homes greater than 8,000 prisoners when it was constructed with capability for 3,500 prisoners.
Best in Koh Samui
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The settlement that Foreign Affairs and the embassy are in search of in Bangkok would permit Daniel Sancho to observe in the footsteps of Carlos Alcañiz, one other Spanish prisoner convicted of homicide. He was transferred to the Koh Samui jail the place Sancho has been held since August 2023. He didn’t have the identical luck, Artur Segarra. This Spaniard, who kidnapped, tortured and dismembered David Bernat, continues to serve his sentence in Bangkok Bang Kwang.
One bathe a month
Not solely is there day by day violence between prisoners, however well being issues They are the order of the day. In this jail, inmates barely have the proper to one bathe a month and the water system is not in good situation, so illnesses proliferate extra simply. Besides, The meals is scarce and of poor high quality.
The mortality charge is 25% after two years. “Inmates die from malnutrition, illness and violence.”
“The mortality charge is 25% after the age of two years. Prisoners die from malnutrition, illnesses and violence,” he stated final August in Four the analyst Fernando Cocho. In his opinion, this jail It is “an oblique loss of life menace.”
Violent and unexplained deaths
Jonathan Wheeler, a British man who spent 18 years imprisoned in Bang Kwang after being arrested with 2 kilos of pure cocaine, testifies to this. On one event he noticed how a colleague was brutally attacked whereas he was showering. “When the man had his face lined in shampoo in the bathe, one other Thai man hit him on the head with a bit of metallic. Literally like a pumpkin… hit his head with brains hanging out”, reported in 2022 to Daily Mirror.
In Bang Kwang, the Prisoners die repeatedly from unexplained causes, some violent, however not solely. In 2009 there was an outbreak of swine fever that killed a number of inmates, in response to Gary Graeme Jones, a British inmate who wrote a weblog from jail.
If you do not have cash, you’ll die sooner
No, the smartest thing can be that Sancho, if convicted, doesn’t find yourself in this Hilton, a jail in which “if you do not have cash, you’ll die sooner. You even need to pay on your personal jail go well with.. Someone from outdoors has to pay on your meals, it’s a really harmful place,” says Cocho. So a lot in order that the embassies of the member states of the European Union often be certain that their convicted nationals obtain nutritional vitamins and supplementary meals to maintain them alive.
All of this occurs regardless of surveillance as a result of internet cameras are put in all through the jail. The prisoners sentenced to loss of life, 100, They are monitored by cameras 24 hours a day.
