By Poppy McPherson and Panu Wongcha-Um
BANGKOK (Reuters) -A gambling tycoon imprisoned in a Thai prison after fighting in China received “inhumane treatment” after saying he was a Chinese spy. His lawyers have told Interpol and said they feared for his life.
The Chinese-born man, who holds Cambodian citizenship in Zhijiang, has not let him tolerate it and has received unwanted visits from Chinese officials, the lawyers said in a letter to the international police organization seen by Reuters.
The tycoon was arrested in Bangkok in 2022 on an international arrest warrant and an Interpol Red notice requested by Beijing, accusing him of running illegal online gambling operations in Southeast Asia. She and his lawyers have said the case was politically motivated.
In their Jan. 9 letter to Interpol and shared with Reuters, the lawyers said he was held in solitary confinement, shackled, denied medical treatment for a spinal injury and denied contact with his family.
The tycoon was subjected to “particularly inhumane treatment” and human rights violations of an “institutional nature,” wrote lawyers Clara Gerard-Rodriguez and Pierre-Olivier Sur of France-based firm FTMS-Avocats.
“These elements lead us to serious fear for our client’s life,” the lawyers added.
China’s foreign ministry told Reuters in a statement that she was a Chinese citizen and a “key figure in online gambling and telecommunications fraud crimes” and said the evidence against him was “conclusive.”
It welcomed a decision by the Thai courts to extradite him, calling the move an important achievement in Thai-China law enforcement cooperation. She is lawyers appealing the extradition decision.
Thailand’s Justice Ministry declined to comment, referring questions to the Department of Corrections, which did not immediately respond.
An Interpol Red notice must comply with the organization’s rules, “under which activity of a political, military, religious or racial character is strictly prohibited,” said an Interpol spokesman, declining to comment further.
Trading syndicates
She said last year that his detention followed his refusal to follow orders from Chinese authorities, who he said had instructed him to develop a town on the Thai border.
“They wanted a colony. I wanted to do business,” she told Al Jazeera Network in a Sept. 26 documentary.
China has increased pressure on Southeast Asian nations since the abduction and cross-border rescue of a Chinese actor from Chinese origins and fraud gangs sparked a firestorm this month.
The region in recent years has become a magnet for gambling operations, some of which involve fraud and human trafficking by criminal syndicates, many of which are Chinese in origin.
Days after Al Jazeera’s documentary aired, she was transferred to a maximum security prison in Bangkok that holds people serving long sentences and on death row, his lawyers said.
In late October, lawyers said, she was “brutally attacked” by officers and inmates who accused him of violating discipline. He can’t walk or stand and now uses a wheelchair, they said. The incident was also described in a police report seen by Reuters.
Twice in December, lawyers said, Chinese embassy officials visited them in prison against his will and tried to persuade him to return to China. In a meeting, they said, officials suggested that his family and friends might need help from the embassy, which he interpreted as a threat.
Gambling empire
She is lawyers to overturn the Interpol Red notice to seek his extradition.
“The flagrant violations of the process and gross human rights violations committed by China undermine international legal cooperation and should by themselves be a barrier to extradition,” Gerard-Rodriguez told Reuters.
Reuters could not independently verify the claims.
At the time of his arrest, she was running a gambling empire that was developing a $15 billion casino, entertainment and tourism complex called Shwe Kokko on the Myanmar-Thai border. The Yatai International Holdings Group also had investments in Cambodia and the Philippines.
The company has denied involvement in criminal activity, including human trafficking.
The tycoon told Al Jazeera he was recruited by China’s State Security Department in the Philippines, the main agency that monitors foreign intelligence services, in exchange for dropping a criminal case against him.
China’s state security ministry could not be reached for comment.
She said he worked with a former Filipino mayor Alice Guo, also known as Chinese National Guo Hua Ping. She was investigated by the Philippine Senate’s misconduct office last year over potential ties to offshore gambling operations for Chinese clients.
Guo, who faces graft and money laundering charges, has denied being a Chinese spy and dismissed other accusations as malicious.
