The Authorities claim that Bombat is a hospital- Ha.ha.ha!! In fact, the building areas (measuring some 60x30m) contain only sleeping quarters (60 odd men in a room 24’x14’) and factories of low-tech slave labour manufacturing. The official ‘hospital’ is merely 2 small rooms, one for taking urine samples for drug tests on new inmates/victims. The other is set aside for a creature that puts stitches in Thai scalps after ‘commando’s’ (guards) have finished their ‘drumming practice’ with batons.

Quite a few junkies arrive at Bombat, two cold showers a day is their only treatment they get, unless they’re Thais in which case they get the added bonus of a clubbing. Of course not only Thai junkies suffered clubbings if a guard was in a bad mood, virtually any excuse was enough- even a guy moving slightly in a stationary line. These spectacles were horrifying, a bit like watching seal clubbing, as the victims were defenceless, and on many occasions were beaten to death. Afterwards their bodies are thrown onto a rubbish trolley and wheeled out to wherever bodies were disposed of (cremation is standard in Thailand so no awkward questions from autopsies)

Besides horror Bombat is a place of bewilderment. On your first day, you’re scalped by ‘trustees’ in blue uniforms who have no hairdressing experience at all. You then end up looking like Friar Tuck on a bad hair day. At meal times we had to locate food for ourselves – prison food is red rice and fish heads (prison cats won’t touch the stuff). The toilets are all ‘squatters’ where one is in full view. They remind me of a coconut shy, only one throws eggs instead of balls at all the Thai’s in their ready to leap, toad-like poises.

The only currency is ‘Tamchai’ –an aspirin type powder sold in a packet the size of a credit card. In 1994, 50 Tamchai’s bought one pack of Krung Thep cigarettes, so they had a value of ½ bhat (slightly less than a penny).

Every 12 days we were shackled (by an untrustworthy trustee who always carried a lumphammer with which to hit fellow prisoners), and taken to court in a Toyota prison van –80 plus men crammed into a 13’x6’ vehicle. By some miracle, in spite of being stuffed together far tighter than sardines in a can, I never saw anyone suffocate to death. What a stink! We all wore ‘Monkey suits’ made of some horrible itchy material – brown in colour and only available in children’s sizes. This 12-day nightmare is repeated 7 times if one is not sentenced, then every month thereafter ‘til your case is finished.

On arrival at court, we were put in pens until called. If you have a case partner you’re handcuffed to him all day, as you scurry along in you’re shackles together; Friar Tuck haircuts, in a ‘monkey-suit’ and smelling putrid to be presented to a judge. Not to forget that in Thailand one is guilty until innocent, and fuck me even the Pope would look guilty in this set up. If one has the audacity to plead innocent and then lose (a foregone conclusion) then you get double the sentence automatically.

In Bombat, most foreigners stayed in #4 or 5. When we stayed late due to an afternoon court appearance, we arrived back at Bombat "Too Late" to be returned to our regular rooms. Instead we were herded into #3 – no food, sleep on wooden platforms lousy with bed bugs, with the leg chains on all night. Court wasn’t the worst of it, but more later readers! Just a little bit of Thai remand prisons for you’re reading enjoyment!

Archived from the Brian (KOP) website Written by Johnny Wheeler