The death of a 41-year-old American at a Thai immigration detention center in Bangkok has sparked an investigation by the FBI, according to a UK man who served time at the jail at the same time.
British native Kai Isaacs told several news outlets that the FBI had contacted him and asked him questions regarding the investigation.
Isaacs went to the immigration jail after being nabbed on for overstaying his visa for six months.
While in jail the man recounted that US citizen Rickey Eric McDonald faced over a 4-day period in jail by a gang.
Isaacs says that the gang of foreigners, who were stuck in the immigration jail for years since their home countries didn’t want them back, routinely beat up and abused McDonald for the simple fact that he was an American.
According to Isaacs, the gang of diverse foreigners owned the detention center in the Sathorn area of Bangkok.
“They picked on him from the minute he walked in the room,” Isaacs said. “They beat him and beat him and beat him.”
Isaacs also states that the facilities of the jail were obscene, consisting of 150 people sleeping in a single room.
Inmates were given a 3-liter bottle upon entering the detention center, which could only be refilled during a one-hour window per day when the tap was turned on.
The gang, Isaacs says, didn’t allow McDonald to even stand up and blocked his access to the tap. Isaacs tried to intervene on McDonald’s behalf but was stopped by the gang.
After four days of torture by the gang, Isaacs stated that McDonald died in his arms from heart failure.
Isaacs was deported to the UK and is blacklisted from Thailand for one year.
McDonald, a university-educated teacher, was buried in his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky in June.
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