Bang Kwang Prison

To day I did one of the hardest things I ever done, but at the same time – one of the best. I went to Bang Kwang Prison to visit Michael Connell whom I stumbeld upon after surfing in on www.foreignprisoners.com. I found out about foreignprisoners.com here at backpacking.se after a swedish girl posted a blog about it as she her self went to visit another inmate of the Bang Kwang Prison.

This is Michael’s story: Michael had just landed in the Bangkok airport where Thai customs officials were waiting for him. They knew his name, the flight he was on, what he was carrying and what he was wearing. Obviously, they had been tipped off within Thailand. The only people that knew what Michael was wearing were the passengers of that same flight. The only people that knew what he was carrying were the drug dealers that forced Michael to take 3,400 ecstasy tablets into Bangkok to repay the debts he had racked up. Somewhere between Pattaya and Bangkok, someone made a phone call and informed on Michael. That same someone walked through Thai customs as Michael was being arrested. That same someone carried a suitcase full of drugs and was never apprehended.

Michael was sentenced by the Thai Court on 23rd March 2004 to 99 Years. His Defence lawyer Prutti Kuranon said Michael Alan Connell had escaped a death sentence by agreeing to enter the plea ‘guilty’. However Michael went to the Criminal Court for an appeal and the judgement of the Appeals Court was that his sentence was reduced from life imprisonment to 30 years imprisonment.

Michael accepts that he deserves punishment for his crime and I do not defend his actions in any ways. However I do think that a guy his age, young and naiv and making a really bad decision, deserves another chance.

Anyways, like I said it was one of the hardest things I’ve done but also one of the best. I did not get much sleep last night as I was very nervous and worrying about what to expect. But it was not not at all what I had pictured it. I knew though that I would talk to him through double glassed windows and through a phone as I paid a visit to the British Embassy on Friday to make the arrangements for my visit, but I had somehow pictured it to be a lot worse or scarier that it actually was. It took some 5 minutes to kind of break the ice, but we ended up having a good conversation and quite a few laughs for about one and a half hour 🙂
It was actually a very busy day at the prison to day, met quite a few people who were there to see prisoners that they had made acquaintance with through foreignprisoners.com.

I’ve been planning to visit Michael for quite a while but I did not want to say anything about it as I am pretty sure that some of you will not understand why I would like to go see him or would try to talk me out out of it. I urge you all to take a look at www.foreignprisoners.com before you make any judgements, and I do hope that maybe some of you might consider visiting a foreign prisoner while you are out traveling. Most of them are a far, far way from home and some of them never gets any visits from relatives or friends. Giving an hour or so of your time might mean the world to some of them. I am truly glad that I decided to visit Michael in Bang Kwang, and I will for sure go again the next time I come to Thailand. If he’s not around anymore (which I hope he’s not) I’ll give an hour of my time to some of the other prisoners there.

So, this is how my travel in Asia ends this time. I thank you all for following me on my adventures, for writing me small comments that at times has meant a lot being so far away from you all as I have been for so long. I am truly looking forward to see you all again sometime in a nearby future!

I LOVE YOU ALL!