Thailand does not have the death penalty for cocaine trafficking, a crime of which three Brazilians were accused after being arrested last week, caught at Bangkok airport with more than 15 kilos of the drug. The country’s law provides for life imprisonment in these cases, but only if opioids are mixed with the narcotic.
On the 14th, around 7 am (local time), authorities discovered 9 kilos of cocaine in the secret compartments of three suitcases belonging to a Brazilian couple arriving from Curitiba to Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Later, around 1 pm, another Brazilian was arrested with 6.5 kilos of cocaine. The government suspects that the three are part of a group, because the drug – which together is valued at 46.5 million bahtes (R$ 7.4 million) – was hidden in the same way.
The initial fear of the prisoners’ families was that Brazilians would pay for the crime with their lives, as Thailand provides for the death penalty for some crimes. The country is neighboring Indonesia, where in 2015 two Brazilians were executed, after more than a decade in prison, for trafficking cocaine.
Although capital punishment is foreseen in some situations, Thailand has abandoned the case, and since 2010 has only executed one person, in 2018, arrested for murder. For comparison purposes, in 2022 alone, the United States has executed three prisoners, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a body that monitors the matter — since 2010, there have been 355 executions.
In the Southeast Asian country, execution by firing squad is also prohibited, as was done with Marco Archer and Rodrigo Gularte in Indonesia; the convicts receive a lethal injection.
There are still 254 people awaiting execution in Thailand, 163 of them for drug-related crimes, according to the panel that monitors the issue at Cornell University, but in practice almost all of these cases end up being life imprisonment.
Thai legislation divides illegal drugs into different categories. The most serious include heroin, amphetamine, MDMA and LSD. It is for traffickers caught with these substances that the death penalty and life imprisonment are envisaged.
The second, in which Brazilian prisoners are framed, includes cocaine, codeine, methadone and morphine. The penalty is up to 10 years in prison and a fine. If morphine or heroin is mixed with the drug, however, it can go up to life in prison.
The defense of one of the prisoners, Mary Helen Coelho Silva, 21, is awaiting the forensic report, but the initial information released by the Thai authorities only mention cocaine. Lawyer Telêmaco Marrace, who took over the defense of the young woman from Pouso Alegre (MG), says that he hopes that the Brazilian will still receive a royal pardon and be able to return to Brazil.
He says he believes she is a victim of a group and didn’t know she was carrying the drug. “There are guys who work for drug dealers and who go to big clubs or create a Tinder and Instagram account to hook girls. They offer trips and hide things in their suitcases,” he says.
Mary Helen worked at a steakhouse and quit shortly before leaving. She told her family that she would go to Curitiba to find a boyfriend. They only learned she was in Thailand when they received a message asking for help.
Away from her father, who lives in Rio, and with her mother with an advanced stage of cancer, she planned to open a cake company with her sister and resume her studies, says her brother-in-law Anderson Souza, 28, a bricklayer. “The sister pulled her ear a little, said she had to go back to school, go to college. She had dropped out of school because for us, you either work or you get hungry, you know?”
For Souza, in addition to the anguish of seeing a family member arrested on the other side of the world, judgment on the internet weighs heavily. “My children can’t access a social network, they can’t go to school,” she complains.
The anguish is shared by the family of Jordi Vilsinski Beffa, 24, another arrested boy, who lived in Apucarana (PR). In the week of the trip, he ended the relationship and resigned from his job as a machine operator in a textile industry, in the production of masks against Covid-19.
On the 11th, he said goodbye to his mother, Odete, and his father, Arlindo, and said he was heading to Balneário Camboriú (SC) in the company of two men. The trip to the beach, however, did not exist.
Lawyer Petrônio Cardoso says that Jordi is separated in a detention center, in quarantine because of Covid, which should end on March 7. “Until then, there’s no way to talk to him in person.” The lawyer says he is in direct contact with the Thai embassy in BrasÃlia, which has been providing information about the Brazilian’s health conditions.
Meanwhile, Cardoso tries to get a Thai professional who will accept to defend Jordi for free in the country or for a minimum payment. According to him, the boy understands English reasonably well and had traveled abroad before.
The name of the third Brazilian detained has not yet been released. The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it “follows up the situation and provides all necessary assistance, in accordance with current international treaties and local legislation.”
The report asked what type of assistance is provided, whether there is information about the safety of Brazilians and whether families have access to prisoners, but the Itamaraty did not respond.
