A Briton who is believed to have fathered a woman’s baby in a Laos prison to save her from a death sentence has gone missing from the jail, prompting fears for his safety.
John Watson was removed from Phonthong prison last week, said the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which admits it has lost track of the whereabouts of the 47-year-old from Bradford, northeast England.
Welfare groups said he had been secretly taken to a “punishment prison” in the capital, Vientiane, and his life was in danger.
Watson is understood to have artificially impregnated Samantha Orobator, 20, with a syringe while they were in Phonthong prison together, so she could avoid the death penalty.
She is expected to be flown home this week to serve her sentence in the UK.
Watson was taken from the jail by Laotian officials shortly before the arrival of UK Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant last Tuesday.
The officials refuse to tell British diplomats where Watson is.
Inmates said he was taken to the notorious “black hole of Samkhe,” an underground punishment cell in Samkhe prison.
A welfare group told the Foreign Prisoners Support Service that the jail was renowned for torture.
“John said he would not survive if he was transferred. It’s ironic that John gave a life to save a life and now his own life is seriously in danger,” said Kay Danes, who runs the service. “He has saved Samantha’s life. Nobody gets transferred from Phonthong unless it’s a punishment. Pro-democracy protesters go there and never come out.”
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
RSS