“The biggest problem that Daniel Sancho will have will be when he is transferred to the Bangkok prison, the well-known Bangkok Hilton. And the main problems will come from food and humidity.”
If there is a Spaniard who knows about foreign prisons in general and Thai ones in particular, that is Javier Casado. A pucelano who has ended up dedicating his life to helping Spanish compatriots who are imprisoned in different prisons around the world. He is the director of the +34 Foundation. A project whose embryo started twelve years ago to try to help a Spaniard who was imprisoned in a prison on the other side of the world.
“The foundation was originally born in 2011 when a group of friends from Valladolid decided to do something to help a friend arrested in australia& rdquor ;, he tells El Periódico de España, from Prensa Ibérica, in a telephone conversation. “Until that moment, none of the founders had even had contact with the judicial sphere,” he acknowledges.
“In those first years we thought that our friend would be one of those few “fools & rdquor; Spaniards who had committed a crime abroad & rdquor; , remember now, in these days in which, due to the Sancho Case, he has jumped back to the fore the situation of Spanish prisoners beyond our borders.
“What was our surprise when we found out what there were more than 2600 compatriots in the same circumstances, but in countries and prisons much worse than the Australian ones & rdquor ;, he recalls. That fact led that group of friends to organize to help those forgotten Spaniards.
The name of the entity, which corresponds to the Spanish telephone prefix, came by chance: “In 2014, after spending three years doing volunteer work, we officially registered in the register of Foundations of Castilla y León. Although originally the name was going to be Spaniards in Action, a young Valencian prisoner in Bolivia was the one who accidentally changed our name. She told us that, with the little money that the consulate gave her, she could go to the booth once every three months and dial +34 and thus be able to talk to her family & rdquor ;.
neither blood nor sex
This foundation helps Spanish prisoners in prisons around the world, as long as the prisoner has not committed sexual or blood crimes. This is the reason why they do not assist Daniel Sancho, nor did they assist Artur Segarra or Carlos Alcañiz, the other two Spaniards (both from the Catalan city of Terrassa) prisoners in Thailand.
“Our statutes reflect that we do not give assistance to crimes of blood, sexual and terrorism. The reason is that our organization is nourished by hundreds of Spaniards residing abroad who carry out volunteer work visiting and helping their compatriots. For all of them it is very satisfying to be able to help someone from their land who, for another reason, life has brought him there. But in no case do they want to assist murderers, rapists or terroristssince the pain of the victims is more understandable than the Spanishness of the condemned & rdquor ;, he explains to this newspaper.
However, Casado knows the prisons of ancient Siam very well. He has traveled to Thailand on a dozen occasions to help other national prisoners in that country and anticipates what Daniel Sancho will find in his next destination, in the prison of the Thai capital ironically known as Hilton.
“This prison is known for its harshness and its extreme conditions, especially overcrowding and temperature and humidity. Are especially hard for the foreign population, who is not used to that weather. This overcrowding makes food very scarce and also places to sleep, so inmates accumulate between corridors and patios on the ground. In terms of food, he is going to eat rice constantly & rdquor ;.
Colombia and Japan
Despite the harshness of the penalties in Thailand, Casado denies that they are among the worst in the world: “The most complicated for Spaniards, due to language issues, are the Latin American ones. And, between them, Colombians are the ones who take the cake”, he assures.
However, and although surprising, the most difficult are in one of the most developed countries on the planet: “Although it seems incredible, The toughest prisons in the world are those in Japan. Not physically, but psychologically. This is because the Penal Code and the country’s Constitution itself allow psychological abuse of the prisoner.”
Casado, who cites this documentary recorded by a French television in the Japanese Fuchu prison to illustrate his statement, assures that “when we get a Spaniard imprisoned in a Japanese jail to return to Spain, it is almost impossible for him to recover. They recover from beatings and poor nutrition as soon as they spend time in Spain. Of dehumanization and psychological torture it is much more difficult to recover”.
France and Morocco
Currently there “908 Spaniards imprisoned abroadthe majority for crimes related to drug trafficking and practically half are imprisoned in European Union countries & rdquor ;, says Javier, France being the country in the world with the most Spaniards in prison.
Most of the Spanish prisoners in France “are carriers who were arrested for trying to take hashish from Spain to Northern Europe”. And the second country where we have more imprisoned compatriots “It’s Morocco & rdquor ;, also for issues related to drug trafficking. The latter are also prisons of a special harshness.
During all this time, the +34 Foundation has served more than 5,000 Spaniards that they were found prisoners in prisons all over the world, achieving many of them (the vast majority, according to Casado) could end up serving part of their sentences in prisons in our country.
Regarding the specific functions of the foundation, they say that “we make temporary visits to imprisoned Spaniards, to deliver basic humanitarian aid, such as hygiene kit, clothes, vitamin supplements and medicines to everyone who needs it. In addition, they are visited once or twice a year with a medical team that performs a check-up to see their state of health.”
But it is not only the prisoners who receive the aid: “It is a double assistanceto the inmates and their families, since the latter are also serving another sentence, that of distance and ignorance & rdquor ;.
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Regarding the possibility of Sancho being transferred to a prison in Spain, Casado already anticipates that “it is a slow process. At the moment they are asking for the death penalty, but foreign prisoners are not executed in Thailand. He will be commuted to life imprisonment and then, after four or five years, on the king’s birthday, they will ask to be commuted again for a specific period. 40 or 50 years.”
“It will be then when you can request the transfer to Spain to serve an equivalent or similar sentence. Because here there is no life sentence. Although we have reviewable permanent prison, It is recent and there has not yet been the case of any prisoner that he has committed the crime abroad and that sentence has been imposed here”.