An Australian man who successfully beat a drug charge in a Bangkok court has had his acquittal overturned on appeal and been handed a 50-year sentence in a dramatic display of Thailand's latest anti-drug clampdown.
Robert Keith Foley's conviction after a lower court had acquitted him on possession of 500g of heroin has stunned lawyers and observers because police never alleged they found him with the drugs and instead relied on a co-accused who claimed he gave them to her.
Foley, 45, from Sydney, who spent 6 1/2 years in a Bangkok jail while waiting for the appeal, was transferred to Bang Kwang prison last week after the court read the sentence on October 31, 17 days before it was due, and without the presence of his lawyer.
He had been arrested in mid-1997 and charged with possession of 500g of heroin, two months after four others, a Dutch man, an Italian, a Thai woman and her brother, were arrested on related charges.
All were initially acquitted, with the Italian man allowed to leave Thailand but the others remanded in prison during the prosecutor's appeal.
They were all subsequently convicted and given long or life sentences. Speaking during visiting hours from prison this week, Foley, said he felt "numb".
"You just go numb after getting a sentence like that and then gradually your feelings come back."
He said the prison -- which houses 10,000 prisoners on death row or serving 33 years or more -- was a place of "no hope".
"I've met people in here who have been here for 18 years and they've still got 20 or more to go ... the walls here creep into your heart and you turn to stone."
Foley, who spent six years in Brisbane's Boggo Road jail for an armed robbery and shooting during his "troubled youth", insists he is innocent of the current charges.
"They had no evidence, the first court threw it out," he said.
"In 99.9 per cent of cases the second court will not convict if the first court hasn't."
Foley's lawyer will appeal to the Supreme Court.
"This conviction is a result of policy," he said. "I'm not saying I'm an innocent man, but I'm innocent of this trial."
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has vowed to make Thailand drug-free by December 5 as a birthday present for King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
As a result of his crackdown, earlier this year more than 2500 alleged drug traffickers were shot dead on the streets in a three-month period this year.
Mr Thaksin claims the deaths were largely the result of drug ring shootouts but human rights groups, including Amnesty International, allege many were the victims of police assassinations.
