Original Story

Thais freeing 8 Americans in drug cases

December 8, 2002

BY MARY LONGMORE 

BANGKOK, Thailand--Eight Americans convicted of drug smuggling, including
a former television journalist, were moved out of maximum-security prisons
Friday and will soon return to the United States.

The eight prisoners, five men and three women, are being returned under a
treaty that lets the United States bring its imprisoned citizens home after they
serve a portion of their sentences in Thailand. Those with drug convictions must
have served at least eight years.

The most prominent among the prisoners is Stephen Roye, a onetime television
journalist and winner of a local Emmy award for his reporting in the United States.
 
Roye, 57, was arrested Oct. 20, 1994, at Bangkok airport while trying to board a flight
to Amsterdam with about 61/2 pounds of heroin sewn into the lining of his suitcase.

He claimed he had infiltrated a smuggling ring to research a story on heroin
trafficking between Thailand and the United States. During his trial, he said he
was forced to carry the heroin after the traffickers threatened to kill his elderly
mother and 20-year-old son.

Before his arrest, he had left his job at WWOR-TV in Secaucus, N.J., to open a
sports memorabilia store. After the venture foundered, Roye returned to his
native Southern California, where he claimed to have come up with the idea for
the drug story.

Roye pleaded guilty in hopes of getting leniency but was sentenced to life in
prison anyway. Trafficking heroin can be punishable by death, though no
westerners are known to have been executed.

Like the other released male prisoners, Roye had been held at Bang Kwang
prison north of Bangkok.

Also going home was Garth Hattan, 40, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison
after he was arrested in 1994 with more than 13 pounds of heroin in his luggage.
 
While in prison, Hattan, a musician and surfer from Carmel, Calif., became
engaged to an Australian prison rights activist who had been visiting him for the
last six years. 

After spending Friday and Saturday night in Bangkok's immigration detention
center, the prisoners are scheduled to fly to Los Angeles on Sunday escorted
by U.S. marshals. They will be sent to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention
Center, where their sentences will be adjusted according to U.S. laws, said a
U.S. Embassy spokesman. That means they could be freed. AP 

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