A Secret History of the Bangkok Hilton (3 page)

As a guide, I felt it was my responsibility to be able to answer questions the visitors had that were beyond the exhibits themselves. So I did extensive study of the history of Thailand’s prisons and judicial system. It helped me to understand the stories behind many of the strange items on display.

The main exhibition building houses paintings depicting gruesome ancient forms of punishment such as being caged and eaten alive by starved dogs, being burnt alive or being tied to a cross and having one’s skull opened while still alive. These were reserved for those who had committed severe crimes. Three types of whips were used, one of which was said to be soaked in salt water to ensure excruciating pain was inflicted.

One tactic used to obtain confessions involved making the accused lie down in a small coffin with his hands tied. There were two small air holes in the lid to ensure that the person inside suffered greatly but did not suffocate. To make matters worse, the box was placed under the glaring sun.

One piece that seems to draw the attention of Thai and foreign visitors alike is a rattan ball called takro. A convict would be made to enter this 80cm diameter ball and assume the foetal position. The ball would then be kicked around by an elephant as the man inside was cut and stabbed by sharp nails sticking into the ball’s interior.

Another horrifying centrepiece is a hook called bet lek. It looks like a T on a tripod standing slightly taller than a grown man. The T, with a central pivot, has arms that can tilt in the same way a balance does with a pulley and a hook on one arm. The offender was made to stand with his hands tied behind his back while the hook pierced his chin from beneath. The punisher then pulled the rope to gradually lift the hook, leaving the offender with no choice but to stand on his toes while it further dug into the inside of his mouth.

Looking past the disturbing nature of these exhibits, you will see the progress of civilisations. Torture used to be part of ancient judicial proceedings but societies have abandoned such practices in order to adopt a fairer, more humane approach to punishment.

Chapter 2

Ancient justice

Contrary to what you might expect, however, trial by ordeal and barbaric penalties were not the norm at the dawn of Thai civilization in the Sukhothai era, which ran from 1238 to about 1350.

At that time, King Ramkhamhaeng the Great, the third monarch of the first kingdom, who is credited as the inventor of the Thai language, allowed his subjects to ring a bell placed at the front of his palace if they wished to have an audience. He would then listen to their complaints and settle disputes between his subjects in person. This shows how close the benevolent king was to his subjects.

To avoid the threat of an epidemic, King U Thong, the founding king of Thailand’s second kingdom, moved his court to establish a new capital named Ayutthaya in 1350. He succeeded in peacefully taking Sukhothai as a part of his kingdom as a tributary state and declared Theravada Buddhism as the national religion. King U Thong introduced a law based on the Hindu code of conduct called Dharmashastra to govern his kingdom.

Subsequent kings of Ayutthaya supplemented the Thai legal system by introducing other laws to cover a wide range of human activities as the society became more complex throughout more than 400 years of the kingdom. Ayutthayan laws remained in force until the late 19th century when legal reformation took place in the reign of King Chulalongkorn.

Under ancient law, judicial procedures involved physical torture. This practice was known as Jareet Nakhonban and the accused would be subjected to torture for crimes they were presumed to have committed. It is likely that innocent people confessed to the bogus accusations levelled against them out of fear of pain and death.

If they could bring a witness to testify in their favour, however, they might be found innocent. In other words, the defendants had to act as their own attorneys and prove the accusations were unfounded.

Besides the use of violence during criminal proceedings, I have read many strange accounts of what was lawfully acceptable then. For example, it was legal for parents to assault a man who had sneaked into their house to meet their daughter without their consent. Householders could stab burglars who had broken into their homes. A charge could be brought against those who merely behaved suspiciously. Neighbours would be punished if they themselves couldn’t catch the thieves. This was deemed justified as necessary to keep the peace in the community as it would discourage neighbours from providing a hiding place to thieves. There was no such thing as ‘
in dubio pro reo
,’ when in doubt, favour the accused, or ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

The living conditions of prisoners were deplorable. In Du Royaume de Siam, French ambassador Simon de La Loubère described prisoners being confined in cages or pens made of bamboo while completely at the mercy of all kinds of weather. He visited Siam (as Thailand was known until 1939) in 1687 during the reign of Narai the Great, a king who was known for his foreign diplomacy.

The Frenchman also wrote that trial by ordeal took place in front of an audience. The plaintiff and defendant were subjected to various tests to prove their innocence. Those who showed a higher pain threshold and suffered less physical damage than others were deemed to be telling the truth. For instance, the one whose heel didn’t swell after walking through fire or whose hands were less damaged after putting them into boiling oil would be the righteous one. Likewise the one who could hold their breath underwater longer was the one who spoke the truth, it was reasoned, because divine intervention would be at work protecting the virtuous.

In a milder test, each of the litigants would be given vomit-inducing medicine and subjected to curses by Buddhist monks. The person who didn’t vomit would be named as the honest one. In the event that both litigants were harmed or both were unharmed, they would have to undergo another test.

Another account described eight prisons holding men convicted of
dacoity
(robbery) each with a cell for their respective wives and children in front of them. Ten
dacoits
(robbers) who had received more lenient sentences would be grouped as one with a neck chain and taken out to do public work. Those who had received harsher sentences would also be tied together using a neck chain but in groups ranging from twenty to thirty. On Buddhist holy days, these prisoners were sent out to markets to beg for food along with their wives and children, each of whom had two fetters (presumably around their ankles and wrists). They were joined together with a rope tied around their waists. This showed that for some offences the wrongdoers and their families were punished.

The ancient system, flawed as it was, did have a way to prevent corruption and the miscarriage of justice, to an extent. It is said that if a litigant believed his judge had received a bribe or was colluding with his legal opponent to facilitate an unfavourable verdict, he could petition the royal court or a nobleman of a rank higher than that of the nobleman who had acted as his first judge. The first judge would then become the defendant to the petitioner.

However, this kind of appeal was not done to reverse the given verdict but to punish corrupt judges, as no legal contest on the same dispute between the litigants would be allowed in a higher court. The judge who was found guilty as charged would have to pay a fine and a court fee for the appellant, and vice versa. In theory, the petition process could be repeated many times up the administrative hierarchy line until the case reached the kings’ ears. In reality, petitioners would give up the fight for fear that their action would result in retaliation from the judges.

The Ayutthaya era lasted until 1767 when the capital was brought to ruin by the Burmese army. Siam was in chaos until it was reestablished by King Taksin, a military commander born to a Chinese father and a Thai mother, who chose Thonburi, situated across the Chao Phraya River from Bangkok, to be the new capital. He was later declared mentally unstable, supposedly as a result of the toll taken on his mind by being constantly at war. In a rebellion led by Phraya San, King Taksin was deposed and forced to become a monk.

When General Chao Phraya Chakri heard of the instability in the capital while he was on a campaign against Cambodia, he returned to Thonburi to put down the rebellion. The general, who later became King Rama I and the founder of the current ruling Chakri dynasty, ordered an investigation, punished the rebels and, to prevent further chaos, ordered that King Taksin be executed.

There are a few possibilities as to how King Taksin’s reign came to a tragic end. One account revealed he was put in velvet bag and beaten to death with a scented sandalwood club in April 1782. Another account claimed that a stand-in was beaten to death in his place and he was sent to live in the Nakhon Si Thammarat province in the south of Thailand. Thai people still discuss the circumstances surrounding the demise of his 15-year reign.

The end of Thonburi ushered in the current era of Thailand, which is called Rattanakosin, and the kings of Chakri dynasty have ruled Thailand ever since.

At first the current kingdom adopted the same law codes used in Ayutthaya, although many were lost when the former capital was destroyed. The revision and collection of ancient laws took place following an unusual verdict. A man called Boonsri petitioned against the judge Phra Kasem for being unfair by awarding a divorce to his wife Amdaeng Pom, who had committed adultery with a man named Racha-at. However, the ancient law stipulated that a ‘woman who requests to be separated from her blameless man should be allowed to do so’. King Rama I expressed his concern that the ancient laws had become irrelevant and ordered them to be revised.

The real turning point for the Thai legal system came about as a result of Siam opening up to trade with western countries and facing the threat of colonisation in the 19th century. Great Britain was the first to demand extraterritoriality, which would make its subjects exempt from local laws, the reduction of import duties to three percent and the abolition of the Thai Royal Treasury’s monopoly of foreign trade as stated in the Bowring Treaty, signed in 1855 by King Rama IV or King Mongkut and Sir John Bowring, the fourth governor of Hong Kong.

Despite its official title as the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce, it could be seen as an unfair contract given that Britain had already demonstrated its military might during the First Opium War with the Qing Dynasty of China from 1839 to 1842. That war forced China to allow free trade in certain ports. Siam feared it was in no position to negotiate either.

In addition, five years before the Bowring Treaty, failed negotiations between King Rama III and Sir James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak and British envoy, had served to heighten tensions. At that time, Brooke’s attempts to negotiate for more freedom of trade and exemption from Siamese laws for British subjects had come to nothing. This resulted in his advising that force be used to make Siam more open to foreign trade.

Before his passing, King Rama III reportedly stated that Siamese warfare with Burma or Yuan (Vietnam) would be no more but that the new threat came from westerners. ‘We should study their innovations for our own benefit but not to the degree of obsession or worshipping them,’ he said.

His parting words coincided with the subsequent capitulation of Burma and Vietnam to colonial rule by the British and the French, respectively.

After the Bowring Treaty, the next 13 bilateral treaties between Siam and western countries each imposed extraterritoriality as a condition. Under these agreements, disputes between Siamese and foreign subjects would be determined by the consul of their respective countries in amicable conjunction with Siamese officers. Foreign offenders were subject to their laws and Siamese offenders to Thai law. The consuls wouldn’t interfere in matters solely concerned with the Siamese, nor would the Siamese authorities interfere in questions that concerned only foreign subjects.

Back then, Siam had courts under each ministry though they were not the exact equivalent of their western counterparts, especially as trial by ordeal was still used. These courts were unique, questioning the defendant and acting as the judge.

Officials involved in the legal process could be divided into two groups. One group, called luk khun, specialised in law codes. The other group was made up of officials who either were involved in the court hearing or carried out specific duties as part of the legal proceedings.

A legal action began when a private accuser brought a complaint against someone. An accuser had to see an official who would write down his complaint. The official then passed it on to another official who would send the case to the luk khun, who then would decide if it had merit or not.

The accuser ran the risk of being punished if his complaint was found to be frivolous. If not, the nature of case would be assessed and it would be assigned to a court under a ministry deemed suitable to process it. The testimony would then be sent to the luk khun who decided whether the defendant or the plaintiff should lose the case or if it needed further investigation. The verdict was then sent to another official who gauged what kind of punishment would be handed down before the judge carried out the punishment. Besides having their own courts, many ministries also had their own jails.

During the reign of King Chulalongkorn, Siam reformed various aspects of its legal systems and abolished slavery, in order to appear as a civilised country and to avert colonisation.

His Majesty, the fifth king of the Chakri dynasty, managed to keep the country independent even as France and Britain controlled most of Southeast Asia. However, Siamese autonomy came with a price. Some of its territories, namely parts of what are now Laos, Cambodia and northern Malaysia, were handed to these two powers to save the majority of the country.

Prince Rabi, the ‘father of modern Thai law’ and King Chulalongkorn’s son, noted at the time that Siam’s legal system was ineffective. He wrote: ‘Under old criminal proceedings, those who faced criminal charges would suffer greatly. They would be detained before a court hearing could take place which took a long time, unlike today. Moreover, during a hearing, the accused was presumably viewed as a criminal. Court officials tended to hit or whip the accused to obtain evidence. If the accused could find a witness to testify of his innocence, he could be acquitted. In other words, the accused himself had to prove the charge levied against him was bogus. Today the accused is viewed as innocent until proven guilty.’

About trial by ordeal, he said, ‘It was open to abuse by the judges, resulting in people losing respect for them and seeing them as demons.’ He pointed out that the judges didn’t exercise any lenience because low-ranking judges were under pressure to perform and answer to their superiors.

Prince Rabi exposed another glaring flaw in the system of old, that of limitless imprisonment. Under the old law, imprisonment was for life—unless the king graciously pardoned the convicts or reduced the term of the sentence. ‘The courts always bring petitions seeking clemency from the king. His Majesty is always diligent to commute a period of imprisonment case by case for criminals from all over the country. However, such a task is simply too overwhelming to be carried out alone.’

Many prisoners were imprisoned for years without proper cause or judgment. In an 1891 letter to King Rama V, the chief prison doctor wrote that he had met a patient who had been imprisoned for 28 years for a petty offence and, on top of this, he had yet to be told whether he had been found guilty. Another account said a man named Ai Rung had been imprisoned for gang robbery along with nine other men. After 14 years, only Ai Rung survived, though he still did not know either what offence he was supposed to have committed or the limit of his sentence.

An 1890 account by Prince Damrong Rajanupab, King Mongkut’s son, told of a case of royal pardon. At a meeting, King Rama V told those present that he had received a rather unusual petition letter from a prisoner named Ai Tim from Intaburi town. Ai Tim had been incarcerated for 10 years for robbery. In the letter, he said that throughout his imprisonment, he had been trained in the craft of making rattan wares. He had made it his mission to create a masterpiece in the hope of giving it to His Majesty. Should King Chulalongkorn be pleased with his work, he would beg His Majesty to kindly grant him a pardon. Ai Tim said, if freed, he intended to be a monk for the rest of his life and never return to his old ways. At the end of his letter, he vowed that if his message contained any false information, he would be willing to receive capital punishment from His Majesty.