Taoyuan resident Lee Chin-yi (李進益) yesterday accused Thai police and the Thai drug enforcement bureau of framing him and attempting to extort money from him.
At a press conference yesterday organized by KMT Legislator Yang Li-huan (
According to Lee, a police officer stopped him while he was on his way back to Taiwan on July 30 last year from a business trip to Bangkok. Lee said the officer came out of nowhere and asked him questions in Thai while he was going through the security check at the airport's immigration counter.
Lee said he saw a piece of luggage on the counter and assumed the officer wanted his help with the bag. After helping the officer, Lee said went to board the plane with his carry-on baggage.
"That was the beginning of the nightmare," Lee said. "Several Thai police officers who claimed to be drug enforcement officers boarded the plane and told me that the baggage I helped the police officer with was actually full of drugs and they believed that I was the owner of the bag. I was arrested and spent more than 13 months in jail."
Lee said that he doesn't speak Thai and the police didn't give him a chance to defend himself until he was in court.
"I never had a chance to explain anything until the first hearing. They finally provided me with a translator once I was in court," he said.
Lee said that the Thai court held many hearings into his case but couldn't come up with any result because the key piece of evidence -- the video tape recorded by the airports' security system -- was in the possession of the Thai drug enforcement bureau.
However, the bureau refused to present the video tape as evidence and gave various excuses to postpone the hearings.
Lee's wife, Tsai Mei-yun (蔡美雲), said the drug bureau asked her to pay 4 million baht (US$98,000) in exchange for Lee's freedom. A failure to pay, she said, could have seen Lee jailed for more than 10 years.
Lee said he refused to meet the demand.
"I insisted on not paying because I didn't do anything wrong. The Thai drug enforcement bureau finally presented the video tape as evidence according to a direct order by the court. Finally, on Sept. 3 this year, the court proved my innocence and released me," Lee said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Taiwanese citizens to immediately contact local embassies or representative offices should they experience trouble in a foreign country.
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