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Published on January 30, 2008

Pranom Changkham, 44, has filed a complaint with the Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) claiming the Chumphon-based border police had assaulted her and falsely charged her with possessing 64 yaba tablets.

ONCB officials were given permission to interview her by Corrections Department deputy director-general Police Colonel Phokhapibul Phoratranant and Samut Prakan Prison director Patikhom Wongsa.

The former food vendor said undercover police officers broke into her home in a Bang Bua Thong flat in Samut Prakan's Phra Pradaeng district on October 31 last year.

They claimed a drug suspect, Veera Boonchom, 36, had implicated Pranom as a drug dealer. Finding no drugs in the flat, the officers took Pranom to a "safe house" and put her in a room.

They forced her to kneel, handcuffed her hands behind her back and covered her head with a plastic bag, she alleged. One officer, sat on a table, squeezed her neck with his legs from behind to force her to confess that police found yaba in her underwear.

"They were all southerners. I couldn't understand what they said and what their names were but I remember the leader being tall and fair-skinned." Pranom said. "I begged them not to take Bt20,000 I had in a bank account because I needed it for my three children. I told them I was illiterate and made my living by selling pad-thai noodles in front of Wat Nang Hong.

"I said I was not involved in the drug trade and that I knew the guy who implicated me only by the fact that he was my cousin's boyfriend."

The officers also divided yaba tablets into three piles: one for Pranom, another 185-tablet pile for Veera and the other 48-tablet pile for a woman identified as Mon, she said. The three were then transferred to Phra Pradaeng police station.

After Pranom was put behind bars, she told her boyfriend about the false charge so that he could get a lawyer to help her file a compliant with the ONCB.

Veera said the woman known only as Mon - whom he later learned was arrested by the same team and forced to participate in a police sting operation - called him on October 30 last year saying she needed a bag of yaba, so he quoted a price of Bt38,000 per bag. But he had to have the money first.

Next morning when Veera went to pick up the money, he and his girlfriend were arrested by seven officers and taken to a hotel. Veera said he was assaulted and his head was covered with a plastic bag.

He told police the drug was in a wooded area behind his home in Phra Pradaeng's Samrong Tai, despite the fact that he did not have any drugs.

However, when they went there, the police changed their minds about going into the soi for fear Veera's relatives would attack them. So they took him back to the hotel and beat him some more.

The officers forced Veera to take them to Pranom - from whom he reportedly bought yaba at Bt150 a tablet before selling it at Bt200. After a search of Pranom's place yielded nothing, they were taken to a "safe house" in Bangkok's Phyathai area.

He said the police threatened to charge him and his girlfriend with possessing 400 yaba tablets. He begged for mercy, saying their kids would have no parents.

The police said one of them had to face a charge and the other could go, so Veera confessed and was taken to the police station. He said the leader of the plainclothes officers was named Nat.

The Nation

SAMUT PRAKAN