Police and corrections officials took returned fugitive Chaowalit "Sia Paeng Nanod" Thongduang from the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat to Bangkok on Wednesday morning and he was immediately admitted to the central prison.
Chaowalit, 37, and his escort arrived on a police plane at the police aviation division in Don Muang district. The escapee, who was captured in Indonesia, was then taken to Bang Kwang Central Prison in Nonthaburi province.
Chaowalit was transported from the airport to the prison in a police van in the middle of a convoy with four other police vehicles. He was accompanied by four heavily armed commandos of the Crime Suppression Division.
He would be kept in solitary confinement for his own safety a senior prisons official said.
Indonesian authorities returned Chaowalit to Nakhon Si Thammarat on a chartered private jet on Tuesday evening. He was arrested in Bali on Thursday last week after a fight with an Indonesian woman drew police attention to him.
Police interrogated him in Nakhon Si Thammarat on Tuesday night but cancelled their plan to hold him there for four days. He was instead taken to the central prison in Bangkok.
Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong said on Wednesday that Chaowalit had been transferred quickly to central prison because the Nakhon Si Thammarat prison was still under construction.
Chen Kanchanapat, deputy director-general of the Department of Corrections, said Chaowalit would be placed in solitary for his own safety, because he might have enemies at the prison.
Pol Col Audie Latuheru, head of the international crimes section of the Indonesian police, said at the Justice Ministry that Chaowalit had arrived in the Indonesian province of Aceh. People there suspected of harbouring him and giving him a fake ID card had been arrested.
Chaowalit was serving time for attempted murder and was facing multiple other criminal charges, including murder and firearms possession.
On Oct 22 last year he fled from Maharaj Nakhon Si Thammarat Hospital in Nakhon Si Thammarat after being taken there for dental treatment.
After the escape, police tracked him to a hideout in the Banthad mountain range in Trang on Nov 8. There was a shootout and he escaped again, into the mountainous terrain that straddles Phatthalung, Trang and Satun provinces.
Despite a massive manhunt, the escapee evaded capture. It was later reported he was believed to have left Thailand in a speedboat from Satun.
While on the run, Chaowalit released a series of videos in which he claimed he had been unfairly treated.
He said he was the only person sentenced for his crimes despite numerous other suspects being involved. He also claimed his appeal for bail in the pending murder case had not been handled fairly.
On Dec 25 Chaowalit was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for attempted murder. The conviction stemmed from the shooting of a court assistant at a restaurant in Muang district of Phatthalung on Sept 9, 2019. His four co-defendants also received life terms.
The four heavily armed commandos of the Crime Suppression Division who accompanied Chaowalit from the plane to Bang Kwang Central Prison on Wednesday morning. (Photo supplied)
