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Despite his non-guilty plea, Sukree Adam was never allowed bail. He was arrested under suspicions of being an accomplice in the beheading of a 72-year-old man in Pattani.

Sukree, a graduate from the Prince of Songkla University's Pattani Campus, was an English-language teacher at the Muhammadiya School in Pattani before his arrest.

In April last year, Sukree was beaten up during interrogation, and the National Humans Rights Commission has confirmed that he was assaulted.

"He wants a temporary release and the chance to fight against the accusations on fair grounds," said Pornpen Kongkachornkiat, from the Cross Cultural Foundation, yesterday.

She is in charge of the foundation's Access to Justice and Legal Protection Project.

However, according to Pornpen, Sukree's trial looks like it will drag on for a long while.

"When a breadwinner is detained pending trial for a long time, it is his poor family that suffers," Pornpen pointed out.

She said there were quite a few suspects stuck in jail in the deep South at present, and while the number of arrests is growing, she said the judicial process was not preparing to deal with so many cases.

"Legal assistance given to suspects is not comprehensive enough," she explained.

At present, the Songkhla prison is housing 400 suspects arrested in connection with unrest.

"Plus there are 172 suspects in Narathiwat, 114 in Yala and 85 in Pattani," Pornpen said. "In many cases, court trials take so many years to complete."