THE DEATH ROW SOLUTION

Faced With A Rocketing Drug Problem Thailand Is Sending In The Execution
Squads, Writes Mark Baker, And A Westerner Could Be Next.

They were friends, or as close to friendship as anyone gets in the harsh
and wary world of Thailand's prison system: one Burmese, one Australian,
both convicted drug traffickers. Lyle Doniger, the former Sydney
refrigeration mechanic serving a 50-year sentence, would often stop to talk
to his fellow prisoner through the fence that separates his section of
Bangkok's maximum security Bang Kwang jail from the men in leg chains on
death row.

Then, one afternoon a few months ago, the relationship came to an abrupt
and terrifying end. "They came to get him at quarter past four," Doniger
remembers. "At four they lock us down for the night and at quarter past the
death squad came for him. There was a lot of yelling and screaming and I
climbed up to the high window in our cell block to see what was going on.

"Then I saw it was the Burmese guy. He had grabbed at the gates and was
struggling with the guards. Then he turned and looked straight up at my
window. He couldn't see me because of the shadows, but I saw him and I knew
he was looking for me. And then he was gone."

Doniger concedes one piece of good luck in the six-year nightmare since he
was arrested at Bangkok Airport with fellow Sydney junkies Jane McKenzie
and Deborah Spinner, preparing to board a flight to Sydney carrying a
pitiful 113 grams of heroin between them: had they been arrested this year,
they would almost certainly be preparing to face a Thai firing squad.

After years of routinely commuting the death sentences of drug convicts,
Thailand is again executing traffickers as part of a desperate new campaign
to try to contain the country's worsening drug crisis.

This year more than a dozen drug prisoners are believed to have been shot
and dozens more have been sentenced to death - 31 last month alone - under
a strategy promoted by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and endorsed by
the King of Thailand.

Most of those on death row are Thais but an increasing number are
foreigners, other Asians and Africans, and diplomats in Bangkok believe it
won't be long before a Western prisoner is sentenced to death. It is an
alarming prospect for Australians Robert Halliwell and Holly Dean-Johns who
are on trial charged with trying to post a parcel of heroin back to
Australia, a case expected to drag on into next year.

"It seems like it is only going to be a matter of time before a white
foreigner gets the death penalty," says one European diplomat who deals
with foreign prisoners. "The authorities are determined to get tough with
the drug trade and there are no signs that they are in the mood to make any
concessions for foreigners."

For Doniger, McKenzie and Spinner there has been another stroke of good
fortune in recent weeks. Australia and Thailand last month reached
agreement on a prisoner exchange treaty that will enable the three to seek
transfers to prisons back in Australia where they would then be able to
apply for earlier release on parole.

While there were early indications that the deal could see the three
returning to Australia before the end of this year, it appears unlikely to
happen for at least another year. Officials estimate it will take about six
months for the treaty to be reviewed by a joint committee of Federal
Parliament and probably another six months for the first applications to
work their way through the bureaucracies in Bangkok and Canberra.

Under the treaty, prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment will be eligible
to apply for transfers after serving a minimum of eight years in Thailand
while other prisoners must serve four years or one third of their
sentences, whichever is shorter. While Doniger, McKenzie and Spinner were
originally sentenced to life imprisonment, a senior official in the Thai
Corrections Department confirmed to the Herald that the four-year rule
would apply to them as their sentences were "halved" to 50 years at the end
of their trial because they had agreed to plead guilty. Four of the other
10 Australians serving sentences in Thailand will also be eligible to apply.

Doniger remains cautious, even a little pessimistic, about the prospects of
returning to Australia and how much longer he might have to stay in jail
back there. The Thai Government has stipulated that transferring prisoners
must serve at least half their sentences before being granted parole.

"If I went back today, I've still got to do another 20 years. That's
getting me up to a ripe old age," Doniger, who turns 50 in February, said
in an interview yelled across a corridor and two walls of bars in the
visitors' section of Bang Kwang.

"The day the treaty was signed some of the other prisoners heard it on the
radio and starting yelling, 'The treaty's been signed. The Australians are
going home.' But I know it won't be that easy. I've learnt that if you get
your hopes up too much and nothing happens then you get so disappointed
you're almost suicidal. You've got to learn to contain yourself."