Ari Michael Salinger fears for his life during 'nightmare' stay in Thai detention center [Advance Cash ]

When Ari Michael Salinger left his hotel in Patong for a stroll through the city, he never thought he would end up living his worst nightmare.

Salinger, who returned home to Auckland this week, told the Herald he was finally able to breathe.

After seven horrific months of surviving what he described as endless hell in Thai detention, the 45-year-old is now trying to rebuild his life.

He feared he would die while in detention - and claims he endured cramped conditions, rotten food and an agonizing wait to return to New Zealand.

"I thought I [would be] killed,” he said of his time locked up.

'Made me walk around half naked with my pants down'

Salinger moved to Thailand from the Philippines in 2019 as it was considered a better country for his cryptocurrency business.

"Business was great when I got here, I made a lot of money and then covid hit I couldn't go back to the Philippines with my partner Vanessa and our son."

After the company fell, Salinger was arrested in late September 2022 by Patong police for possession of drugs.

He was found carrying two ecstasy pills, which he now claims were not his despite his previous guilty plea to the possession charges.

Salinger claimed that when he was arrested and taken to Patong police station for questioning, he was humiliated by officers.

“In the interrogation room, they tightened my handcuffs and even refused to let me use the toilet.

"I have irritable bowel syndrome and they didn't care. I told them otherwise I'll have to relieve myself here if they don't let me.

“So six officers took me to the bathroom.

“I asked for my handcuffs to be loosened so I could pull up my pants but they wouldn't let me. I asked one of them to help me put them back together but they offered no help.

“They made me walk half naked with my pants down all the way down public hallways, they pushed me, knocked me down, they were all laughing and taking a video recording. It was very humiliating”.

Salinger said he was unable to access a lawyer or the embassy and had to spend the night locked up - and felt extorted by the lawyer eventually provided to him.

Salinger said that on each court date, police would pressure him to plead guilty.

“Three times I have pleaded not guilty. Then a court date, they said we got a lot for you, if you plead guilty you'll be fine.

"The lawyers told me that if I pleaded guilty, I would get no sentence and if I pleaded not guilty and it was proven otherwise, I was going to get two years in prison, so I decided to plead guilty so he can leave Thailand for good."

Salinger thought he would have time to sort through his belongings in Thailand - and send them to his wife and children in the Philippines before being deported.

"At that time, I did not know that there were life-threatening situations in the IDC [Immigration Detention Centre]," he said.

'A nightmare'

Salinger was due to surrender at the IDC in Phuket on May 8 after paying a fine, but he said he endured another week at the Patong police station.

"It was like a nightmare to go back there. They took all my clothes off. It was like in a horror movie.

Salinger said he saw a female prisoner being treated like vermin in the cell across from him.

"I think she was making a lot of noise so they handcuffed her next to the toilet. There were five other people in that cell.

Salinger said he had no food or clothes, was hungry, and handed the police guard some money in hopes he would get him something to eat.

"But he didn't feed me, he just put the money in his pocket."

Salinger said he thought the officers would do what they did to the woman in the opposite cell, so he kept quiet.

"An Australian [died] just two weeks before being sent there to Patong Police Station.”

He spent four nights and five days in the prison cell before being transferred to the IDC in Phuket.

Once there, Salinger was able to use the phone but had to pay the price, he said.

"My partner Vanessa had arrived in Thailand at that time and she was paying the guards to bring me food.

Salinger was later transferred to a detention center in Bangkok, he said.

“I was taken with 28 people in a police van, we were all chained and handcuffed to each other. It was a 13 hour trip.

"It was very hot and if we had to use the toilet we were given a small plastic bottle."

"Every two days we fell ill"

Central Bangkok was a big basketball court, Salinger said, it was packed with 400 to 500 people and the food was rotten at times.

“There was barbed wire around the fences. The only good thing about it was that we could walk a bit.

"But every other day we were getting sick."

Loose hope

Salinger said he felt he had to pass a medical and risk assessment before an airline would accept him to fly because of his criminal conviction and ADHD condition.

However, he says he waited weeks to receive details.

He said he repeatedly asked for a doctor at the IDC, but never got one until news of his detention broke and he received a nurse, which again delayed the process.

“ADHD affects work and studies, not being a passenger on a flight,” he said.

In an email to the embassy, ​​and at my wit's end, Salinger wrote "please stop delaying and book the flight!!"

Salinger's father, climatologist Jim Salinger, previously told media that his son was not a risk and that his mental health should not be an issue.

"He's perfectly fine and he's a non-violent person," said Jim, who paid for the flights through the embassy.

Salinger was moved between several detention centers, in the last he spent a month.

“The embassy kept telling me that my flights were confirmed. But at this point I had lost hope, I thought I would be stuck here like many others for years.

“I was sleeping on the floor, with minimal clothes, less food, watching all the other foreigners leave except me, I was losing faith in the embassy.

The day he received final confirmation that he was flying, just last week, Salinger said, he didn't sleep all night.

"I didn't want to miss my chance because I know if I overslept the guards wouldn't care, I absolutely didn't want to miss my flight."

When he landed in Aotearoa, New Zealand, Salinger said it felt like he had his life in control again.

"Last night, for a long time, I slept well.

"But it's still a long journey, prices have gone up here and I have to rebuild my life."

Salinger is trying to raise money to bring his pregnant wife and children to New Zealand from the Philippines so the family can start a new life there.

Akula Sharma is an Auckland-based journalist who joined the Herald in 2022. She previously worked at the Gisborne Herald.