I have just surfaced from a fresh nightmare that might have
been fatal. Three years ago Thailand had its first success with extradition
from the west in 100 years. An expat Birmingham kickboxer Lee Aldhouse killed a
US marine in a Phuket bar fight. After many appeals, the kickboxer was sent to
Thailand to stand trial for murder. This success led them to turn to another
name long on its list. I’ve spent a couple of years fighting the Thai
extradition claim to have me stand trial on the 25-year-old drug case from
which I fled in the mid-‘90s. I was arrested in 2014, imprisoned at Wandsworth, and challenged the case at Westminster Court. Just two weeks before I was due to be flown back,
the case collapsed. I had excellent lawyers, for once. If returned I would
have been chained to a cell wall and not eligible for repatriation until the
age of 76. Assuming I lived that long. Although I’ve faced execution a few
times in my life, previously I’ve always had a B-plan; most reliably, escape.
Here I was relying on lawyers and luck. Rarely a happy combination. What saved
me in the end was time and politics. The Thai court’s warrant against me
expired on 26 September 2016, and just a fortnight before, the Thais’ lawyer withdrew
the request. Although Thailand agreed not to execute me, I would have been on
death row for the rest of my life. They were keen, too. Usually, in
extraditions, one never sees anyone from the requesting country as the holding
country pays for the foreigners’ lawyers. In my case, at every hearing, a Miss
Kittikat (or something like that; the Thai Attorney-General’s deputy) sat glaring at me, sometimes
accompanied by Odd-Job’s twin brothers in black suits. I suspect Thailand didn’t
really want me back in their prisons. The generals were happy to have won in
the British courts – yet if I’d been taken back I would have been subject to
the revenge of prison guards – some 11 had lost their jobs – and the world
inside Thai jails is ruled by the staff, not the officials of the justice
department. After the guarantees given to the UK government, it would be an
embarrassment to find me dead in some cell within months. Now, the case is dead
and can never haunt me in any jurisdiction again. But no one should ever say
never. More on this and Unforgiving Destiny
