Australian prefers Thai jail to home

A MELBOURNE man who has been living in shocking conditions in a crowded Bangkok immigration jail cell for more than four years is refusing to accept Australian Government help to return home.

Colin Hansch, 61, has told Thai authorities he would rather stay in jail than return to Australia, even though he has only a mat to sleep on and receives a small daily serve of rice and soup.

"I've not been back to Australia for 30 years. I don't want to go back, I've got nothing to go back to," he said.

Mr Hansch, a computer engineer who left Melbourne in 1967, is worried he will not be able to obtain a passport to travel overseas again if he accepts the offer. It is believed he wants to be able to visit Malaysia or Cambodia.

"I think they [Australia] don't want to give me a passport … they don't want to set a precedent giving a passport to somebody while they are in custody," he said.

#A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra said Mr Hansch had repeatedly rejected an offer from the embassy in Bangkok to issue a limited-validity document to let him return home immediately.

Mr Hansch has been held at the immigration centre in Bangkok, just around the corner from the Australian embassy, since September 2004. He was transferred there, supposedly pending deportation, after serving two years in a Bangkok jail for assault causing serious bodily harm, which related to a dispute with a bar girl in the beach resort of Pattaya.

He shares a large cell on the immigration centre's second floor with up to 100 illegal immigrants. Fights often erupt. He spends much of his time listening to FM radio and reading books.

The department spokesman said Australian consular officers have provided assistance to Mr Hansch while he was in jail and now at the immigration centre.

For 12 years Mr Hansch worked as a computer engineer for a US firm in Thailand. He has also worked as a computer engineer in the US and at the former Woomera defence site in South Australia.

"Thai authorities have informed the embassy that Mr Hansch is subject to deportation following completion of his criminal sentence and must travel directly to Australia," the foreign affairs spokesman said.

"The embassy is not able to issue Mr Hansch with a full-validity passport as he has been unable to satisfy documentation requirements to enable the issue of a full-validity passport."

There are about two dozen Australians among thousands of foreigners in Thai jails, most of them for drug-related offences.

There is an agreement with Thailand under which prisoners can transfer to Australian jails, but the process is very bureaucratic.

A Melbourne man, Harry Nicolaides, 41, has been in prison in Bangkok since August 31 on charges of lese majeste, which can carry up to 15 years' jail. He is scheduled to appear in court on January 19.