The case against Jesper Jensen, the 47 year old Danish man accused of stealing a ladies bag in Bangkok’s international airport in November last year started this morning 16 May 2024 in Samut Prakan Provincial Court. The case was scheduled to last two days, but because he had changed his plea to guilty, it was over in less than one hour.
Jesper Jensen was sentenced to four years in prison for the theft, aggravated by being at night and by being in an airport. But because he admitted to the theft, the sentence was cut to half.
Along with the sentence he was given a fine, which was reduced by 500 baht for every day of the roughly 180 days he had been in police detention in Samutprakan Central Prison which means the fine is paid up already.
The judge kept the best until the end: He suspended the two years imprisonment because Jesper Jensen had returned a driving license, a credit card and an ATM card from the bag he had taken to the information counter in the airport. Left in his backpack was only the bag itself and inside that there were two small gold buddha amulets.
“Am I free?” Jesper Jensen asked.
“Not quite yet,” was the answer.
Convicted prisoners are extradited from Thailand when they have served their sentence and this process is a lengthy affair. Yesterday evening, he was first transferred to the police station in the basement of Suvarnabhumi Airport where he was apprehended on 18 November 2023. Then he will be transferred to the notoriously crowded and dirty immigration detention center in Bangkok. Then the processing of his case will begin.
Best case scenario is that in two weeks he will be deported to Denmark on a ticket paid by himself and after having paid the overstay fine of 20.000 THB. It doesn’t count that his overstay is because he was in prison awaiting trial.
The leniency of the judge was due to the very hard work of a concerned Danish citizen in Bangkok, Nina Jagota, who heard about the case through her father Gregers Moller, Jesper Jensen’s interpreter in court. Nina Jagota had visited the police officer in charge of the crime in Suvarnabhumi Airport who was going to be key witness in the trial and saw the video surveillance recordings which would be presented in court. She spoke to Jesper Jensen’s assigned lawyer and other lawyers. Eventually, it was clear to her that the only way Jesper Jensen would get the shortest sentence possible was if he confessed fully to the crime and showed his remorse for what he had done. Then she visited Jesper Jensen in prison and persuaded him to drop his initial statement that he was not guilty and instead accept all charges against him.
Adding to the change of plea, the lawyer also asked the judge to consider that Jesper Jensen’s young daughter in Denmark was put in foster care because Jesper was a single father and there was nobody else who could take care of her.
After the judge had read the verdict to Jesper, it took a while before he slowly realized the good news that he was soon to go home. Then he limped over to Nina with his ankles still in chains and hugged her and thanked her for all her efforts getting him released as soon as possible and for her close contact with his family in Denmark. Out of the court room, Nina then immediately called his cousin Konny Sund, who has been her main contact to his family in Denmark, and told her the good news that soon Jesper would be back home.
