Published in The Nation newspaper of Bangkok, Thailand on 29^th May 1993.

1. Readers of The Nation between July 5 1992 and January 31 1993 hopefully appreciated the five photo/articles published under my professional name of Michael-Rohan Sabai. This has been achieved despite the efforts of certain unscrupulous elements acting on behalf of MI-6 (British Secret Service).

2. My first visit to Thailand began with the arrival of a flight from England on April 7, 1986. My second visit commenced on October 19, 1986 with the arrival of a Thai International flight from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

3. I had spent almost three months in Colombo, since July 1986, the place of my birth and home until 14 years ago. During this period I traveled alone to Kandy [in Sri Lanka’s central hill region] to view the renowned Perehara procession. I now realise that it was at MI-6’s request [as a consequence of the combination of my maternal family's position in Sri Lankan society and my signing, at the age of 19, of the British Official Secret Act at the Metropolitan Police Office, New Scotland Yard, London, which resulted in an inaccurate report questioning my identity] that I was held in custody at Kandy Police Station for 72 hours between 20^th to 23^rd August 1986. The ostensible reason was the verification of an address given to me by an undercover Police operative, posing as a Tamil youth named Ganeshkumar.

4. The main thrust of the interrogation, conducted in English as I was no longer fluent in Tamil or Sinhala – [the latter I had known actually, only at conversational level] - was how I had earned the money in England to travel, and whether I had any involvement with any of the Tamil Liberation support groups based in London, which I did not. The Police also wanted to know when I had last visited Batticaloa (a main eastern Tamil town), my father’s and maternal grandfather’s native town. As I was only 10 when this happened, there was no possibility of contact with any Tamil rebel groups.

5. However, the plainclothes Policeman insisted [perhaps influenced by the VIP greeted white woman visitor with a large handbag, i.e. money] that I sign a Statement to the effect that I left England with only £600 (Bt 24,000) to travel through South-East Asia and Australia. It omitted to mention that I had transferred from England money to bank accounts in Singapore and Australia and that my mother had paid for my total expenses to, in and from Sri Lanka. This enabled MI-6 to suggest that I was possibly receiving money from other (illegal) sources and that I was unable to save sufficient money in England to afford my intended backpacker’s tour.

6. I was released at noon on August 23^rd 1986, because one of my several Sinhala cell-mates kindly sent a telegramme to my Uncle in Colombo, while he was out on bail. As my family is part of the upper echelons of Colombo society, it was not possible for the Police to detain me any further, without charging me. When I was first arrested, I was denied the obligatory telephone call and could conceivably have simply disappeared. I returned to Colombo that evening in my cousin’s car, driven by a Sinhala friend of my younger brother and also accompanied by him, [order of words changed].

7. I returned to Bangkok in mid-June 1987 and purchased a flight ticket to London on Air Lanka, from the same travel agent from which I had purchased the PIA [Pakistan International Airlines] ticket from Singapore to Colombo, [about] a year earlier. However, his manner a few days later was unfriendly and business-like and I also noticed that I was being closely followed when I visited Lopburi.

8. At this time I was residing in the family house of a Thai student in Bangkhen, [Bangkok]. Nearby lived a young man [of around my age], who worked at then Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda’s office. I related to him in detail the events surrounding my arrest and incidents since then. Nevertheless, I have reason to believe that I was of special interest at Don Muang Airport and [particularly at] Colombo Airport (where I changed planes for London [bathed in floodlights that were switched on and off especially for me]) on the night of 2^nd/3^rd July 1987.

9. I also expressed to my acquaintance ([both above] names withheld), my opinions on a wide range of economic, social and political issues, in Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, South-East Asia and globally, some of which have become, in the past 6 years, correct assessments. I assumed that this conversation would not reach anyone beyond Thailand, but the incidents in England since then, can in part be attributed to it.

10. The incidents in England increased to a noticeable level upon my acceptance, a year later, to a part-time Photography course at [Sir John Cass School of Art], City of London Polytechnic [now London Guildhall University]. The incidents, which are too numerous to mention here, range from attempts at insincere friendships, where the "friend" is totally manipulated by MI-5 (domestic British Intelligence), to being followed; in a Leisure Centre, while visiting a former neighbour in Wembley, northwest London or even simply going to my local shop (in the same direction as the underground train station) to purchase a bottle of milk.

11. Further breaches of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, manifest in; tapping of my telephone and or [the use of] an electronic bug at work, and an inference by one of MI-5’s indoctrinated operatives, on January 31^st, 1989 that I could be dealing in drugs. Soon afterwards another agent was stupidly posing as a press photographer in the hope that I would approach him with my story. I had previously stated to a "friend" (and informer) that if one more incident occurred, I would approach the press. On 11^th February 1989, I approached my local MP [Member of Parliament] and it was [perhaps] at this point that London’s Metropolitan Police got involved in this matter, probably to seek to ascertain the reasons behind this so-called "investigation".

12. I wrote a detailed letter, dated 4^th July 1989 to the National Council of Civil Liberties, but they were unable to investigate this matter thoroughly, as they are a small organisation, but were sympathetic. I approached my MP, Nigel Spearing again on June 10, 1989, but he informed me that he could not take the matter any further, as he was only in a position to deal with substantive problems; i.e. the retrieval of a package from a photographic studio posted to me 2 months earlier, containing a slide of a Thai girl (photographed by me in June 1987). I suspect that MI-5 subsequently entered my residence and removed an address book of Thai friends and acquaintances that I had met between 1986 and 1987.[Both of these were important to ensure that I could not disprove the current or subsequent lies that I had not flown from Bangkok to London - via Colombo - on 2nd/3rd July on my newly acquired British passport and hence that the British passport was possibly a forgery]

13. I left England on March 13, 1991 for Malaysia [after narrowly escaping an attempt by MI-5 to engineer a fatal car crash for me between three vehicles on lonely hilly road],(still incorrectly believing that the origin of the problem began with my arrest in Sri Lanka), where I have many relatives who [some of whom with their now deceased parents] emigrated from Sri Lanka around 50 years earlier. Upon arrival at Kuala Lumpur, I had to show the Immigration Officer original documents proving my British nationality (effective 26^th January 1987) and the accuracy of my personal details. [I had previously spent a month in Malaysia in June 1986, during my first backpacking trip, on my Sri Lanka passport issued in London in 1985]. I had decided to bring these documents with me because I suspected [as a consequence of travelling through most of Western Europe from August to October 1989] that MI-6 was conducting an inter-secret services mis-information campaign.

14. I departed for Vietnam on June 18, 1991 from Don Muang Airport after evading the surveillance here in Bangkok and went to Vietnam Airlines’ office to change my departure from the 17^th. However, I confirmed with the travel agent that I would be departing on the 17^th as originally scheduled. I suspected that a confrontation (vis-à-vis that I’m using a forged passport) was being created for me at [Bangkok’s] Don Muang Airport by MI-6. I am sufficiently convinced of this due to two particular incidents on the 17^th.

15. I passed through Thailand on my way back to Malaysia and returned here in November 1991. I attempted to get a [temporary] job teaching English, but without success. The secretary of one school, managed by an Englishman (who initially offered to employ me on a trial basis) said that he was sorry, but he had to think of the other teachers, [meaning, the consequences of the security services likely interest in the school as result of my employment there, as most part-time English teachers are on Non-immigrant visa, which does not expressly allow the holder to work, but in practice can be done, but only in normal circumstances, as it neither states that no work can be undertaken].

16. In Jan/Feb 1992 I visited Koh [island] Phangan and Koh Tao on my way back to Bangkok. I suspect that MI-6’s agents precipitated an argument between me and a member of the local Mafia in Koh [island] Phangan [with regard to him insisting that I buy a boat ticket to the value of £1-50, in advance, which would enable MI-6 to know my intended destination well in advance of my arrival there], which resulted in him threatening to kill me, if I ever returned there. In Koh [island] Tao, I informed the only place where one could purchase the boat ticket to Chumphon [on the mainland] that I would do so the following morning, after changing a Travelers’ cheque.

17. The next morning the office was unusually full of Thai men, some in dark glasses, including the Mafia member I had an argument with in Koh Phangan. I did not enter, but turned to leave, passing a white man [standing behind me - ditto the white woman in Kandy Police Station, Sri Lanka in 1986] with a lot of money [in Thai currency to the value of about £2000] in his hand, more than he would need for a luxurious week’s stay. [It was also not possible to convert Thai currency to foreign money on this small island]. I encashed the Traveler’s cheque at the small Post Office, where a carbon imprint was kept. When I returned a few minutes later, except for two men, everyone had left.

18. The carbon copy in the Post Office made it inadvisable for MI-6 to organise my disappearance. This they would have wished to do, because Manager Magazine [only the Thai language newspaper survived in 1997] would probably not have published as scheduled my first-ever photo/article in March 1992 [which was on Hoi An, Vietnam], unless I returned to Bangkok shortly. I was also holding film exposed [by myself], for my following two photo/articles on Phatthalung and Narathiwat (May and June ’92).

19. Subsequently I asked a former Border Patrol Policeman, Oubpatham K (surname withheld), I was acquainted with, to accompany me to Lampang, Phrae, and Nan in April 1992. However, [I strongly suspect that] he was subsequently recruited by agents acting on behalf of MI-6 as an informer and to attempt to get me to spend as much money as possible. He also offered to sell me a gun for Bt 10,000 if I wished to use it against any enemies [at which point MI-6 could easily create a plausible situation to have had me shot dead]. He also stole Bt 1,000 from me and I made my first of three reports at the Tourist Police in Chinatown, [Bangkok]. My photo/article on Nan was eventually published in Bangkok Post’s Outlook [section] on April 23, 1993.

20. Here in Thailand, the only real [not "puppet"] friends I have are those I met 7 years earlier, living in Bangkhen [Bangkok]. This I suspect is a consequence of the questioning of anyone I meet more than casually. From potential friends they are turned into informers, or alternatively choose not to meet me anymore, out of fear from themselves. The object of this is to hopefully make me more willing to reciprocate the subtle or direct attempts at friendship by tourists, particularly English, who are [eventually] totally manipulated by MI-6.

21. Given the interception of some of my letters, I have not been able to consider posting a few of my photo/articles to publications in Europe. Consequently, I have not been able to earn sufficient income as a freelance.

22. Many [readers] may find this personal story difficult to believe. I would have been one of you [disbeleivers], prior to my arrest in Sri Lanka on 20^th August 1986.

The above published letter is actually only an abstract. I authorise anyone to re-publish the above, but only in its entirety. Copyright remains with this author.

The above is located on another website Hypocricy of Freedom by The British State and therefore use the Back button to return to this website.

I was restricted in my choice of employment at the age of nineteen, due to having obtained only four ‘O’ levels, as a consequence of circumstances beyond my control as outlined in Appendix (2). My need to leave "home" resulted in accepting the only job offer that I could secure from Hertfordshire, in London at the Metropolitan Police Office. The erroneous and/or malicious report in 1979/80 from there, would lead to a few years of unemployment.

Subsequently this would lead to my Police Custody in Kandy, Sri Lanka from 20th to 23rd August 1986 for three days (fortunately it was not longer, due to the kindness of Sinhalese stranger). My arrest would probably not have been intended at the time of the deliberate erroneous report, but if my identity is in doubt, then I could have been a member of or associated to the the LTTE, who were engaged in war against the Sri Lankan State to achieve an independet Tamil State. However, a lie in what may originally have been an inconsequential report, lead to unexpected consequences and then lies upon lies needed to be applied by the Security Services in order to at least maintain their reputation.

This subsequently created a mini crisis for the authorities when I purchased, and then boarded on 2^nd July 1987, the Air Lanka flight bound for London from Bangkok, via Colombo, Sri Lanka. The level of the security crisis was illustrated in the authorities feeling the need to use floodlights to bathe the 20 metres to the steps of the airplane, especially for me, in order to ensure that I boarded the London bound plane, as opposed to melting into the night after identifying my luggage on the tarmac. The other issue was the highly political and intellectual conversation I had had with a similar young man who was working in the then Thai Prime Minister's Office. I had expressed my hostility to British and American foreign policy in terms of economic and political influences on the developing world, the insiduos and condescending, but in most cases, not open, racism in England, as well as the the fact that the Tamil/Sinhalese conflict in Sri Lanka is largely due to the struggle between the Sinhalese elite, whose outlook and values and authoritarian approach were greatly influenced by the legacy of the British Empire. I had also expressed my avowed determination to study photography and become a successful photographer.

The previous interest the British security services had in myself was now multiplied, due largely to the embarrassment that a deliberate erroneous report from the Metroplitan Police Office in London, had led to full-scale Security alert in Bangkok and particularly in Colombo. This in turn meant that they sought to ensure that I did not succeed in becoming a successful professional photographer/writer, as it would give me influence and a platform to mention my adverse experience of my life in England as well my political views. However, I succeeded to some extent, as Michael-Rohan Sabai, from 1992-1993, despite every conceivable threat and hindrance that could be devised by the security services, short of directly shooting me dead.

The methodology used by the security services was and is deliberately designed to be susceptible to accusations of paranoia on my part, so as make it extremely difficult to convince others of the harrassment I face.

Largely due to the threat to my life, I felt it was important to publish this letter of 29^th May 1993. However, this again has increased the importance the British Security Services have attached to attempting to thwart and hinder/limit my professional career as well as to seek to influence my personal life. The same methodology mentioned above continued, for a year since then while back in England in 1993/94, and also for the last seven years here in Scotland. My personal and my professional life, the latter to lesser extent now, is affected by a tissue of lies and lies that malign my character and reputation. This is one of the primary methods used by the British Security Services against political targets or those who have story to tell that is extremely embarassing to them.