On this date a decade ago, Thailand machine-gunned in Bangkwang Prison five men — four convicted drug-smugglers, and one murderer.
Bazillionaire populist Thaksin Sinawatra had just become the country’s Prime Minister, and would soon stake his administration on a notorious drug suppression push that would be linked to 2,000-plus extrajudicial killings.
This date’s harvest, perhaps, was its judicial preview. Amnesty International complained that it was “outrageous … to flaunt its tough anti-drugs stance by executing people,” and that’s probably exactly the sort of reaction Thaksin had in mind.
According to the BBC, one of the traffickers had been caught with 50,000 methamphetamine pills — meth being the rising drug problem (pdf) du jour — and another with 30 kilos of heroin.
Thailand executed three more drug traffickers later in 2001.
On this day..
- 1577: Eight English Gypsies condemned - 2020
- 1975: Nine Iranian communists - 2019
- 1818: Five from the Lancaster Assizes, "most dangerous to society" - 2018
- 1820: William Piper, drunken matricide - 2017
- 1947: Jozef Tiso, collaborationist Slovakian President - 2016
- 1945: Robert Limpert, Ansbach antifascist - 2015
- 1860s: Sokichi, crucified servant - 2014
- 1567: Wilhelm von Grumbach, Landfrieden-breaker - 2013
- 1912: Frederick Seddon, for love of money - 2012
- 1860: General Jaime Ortega y Olleta, for a Carlist uprising - 2010
- 1859: Tantia Tope, Indian independence hero - 2009
- 1763: Marie-Josephte Corriveau, Quebec murderess - 2008