AUSTRALIAN ON HUNGER STRIKE IN KLONG PREM

An Australian who has spent the last 11 years in nine Thai prisons has
gone on a hunger strike to convince authorities to extradite him so he
can face drug charges in the United States.

Martin Garnett, 37, who is known to prison authorities as Mitchell
Blake, marked his 4,000th day of incarceration with the promise to
refuse food until he is transferred out of the country or he dies.

According to a report in The Australian, Garnett said his extradition
to the US has been stalled because Thai authorities stand to lose face
if he reveals information about corruption in the prison system.

He has been indicted in Indianapolis on charges he ran an Internet
drug ring from Klong Prem prison, conspiring to ship more than one
kilogram of heroin to the US from Bangkok in 2000.

Garnett told a correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation (ABC) that he was innocent of the smuggling charges.

"Did something happen? Certainly. Were drugs sent to America?
Certainly. Did I send them? No," he was quoted as saying in an ABC
radio report.

"I should get a chance to go to court and answer the charges. I'm
prepared to plead guilty for what I've done," The Australian quoted
Garnett as saying.

Garnett said he could not have operated a smuggling operation from
prison on his own.

"I can't go to a post office, I can't send heroin to anywhere. If I
was on the Internet, there was only one way I could have been. I don't
have a bank account and I can't get cash from anyone. If I'm involved
I'm certainly not alone," Garnett said.

He said US failure to act on the charges has prevented him from
returning to Australia under a prisoner exchange programme. His
application was rejected in March.

Garnett was sentenced to 40 years after being caught at Bangkok
International Airport in 1993 with a false passport (in the name of
Mitchell Blake) and 4.7kg of heroin strapped to his body.

After spells in different prisons he is now housed at Klong Prem,
where he has to squeeze his 195cm frame into a 180cm x 52cm bed to
sleep.

The former car salesman from the Sydney suburb of Petersham has had
two reductions to his sentence but the Klong Prem governor told The
Australian on Wednesday he must serve the remainder of the 26-year and
eight month sentence before his extradition to the US could be considered.

Garnett said the hunger strike would stop only if he dies or is
transferred to the US or Australia. His prisoner exchange application
was rejected in March due to the outstanding US claim.

"The objective is not to die. I don't want to die. The objective is to
get a decision as to whether or not I can go to court and defend
myself against the charge, or if I'm not going to be extradited, then
please allow me to go back to Australia, to an Australian prison,"
Garnett told the ABC.