Hakeem al-Araibi: How the Thais solved a diplomatic dilemma

Until the moment of his release, Hakeem al-Araibi’s chances of returning to Australia had been growing more remote by the day.

Hakeem al-Araibi, left, boards a Thai airways flight to Melbourne with Evan Jones from Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Centre. Picture: Supplied.

Until the moment of his surprise release from a Bangkok prison, footballer Hakeem al-Araibi’s chances of returning to his wife and his Pascoe Vale club in suburban Melbourne had been growing more remote by the day.

The moment arrived when the 25-year-old refugee was told at 3pm on Monday by a prison official that he was going home and should quickly change.

Which home the official was referring to — Bahrain, the country he fled in 2014 after he was arrested and tortured for joining Arab Spring rallies, or Australia, which gave him asylum — was unclear to him until the last hours before his 12.05am flight to Melbourne.

With Araibi driven straight to the airport, and held in a room with no access to lawyers or diplomats, it was only after he borrowed a policeman’s phone and rang his wife that he was confident he was going to Melbourne.

What turned the 11-week ordeal around?

Hakeem Araibi leaves the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand last week. Picture: AP.

Thai authorities had seemed impervious to appeals for them to heed international law and refuse Bahrain’s request to extradite Araibi back to the country he fled. Bangkok even toughened its rhetoric last Wednesday by publicly blaming his predicament in part on Australian officials for alerting the Thais in the first place to an erroneous Interpol red notice Bahrain lodged last November, just as Araibi and his wife were finalising their travel plans.

Behind the scenes, however, Thai authorities started working last Tuesday to break the deadlock.

The circuit-breaker came last week when it became obvious to the Thai Attorney-General’s office that the Foreign Ministry’s assurances there would be no ramifications from extraditing Araibi were way off beam.

Footage of him shuffling into court in leg irons had gone viral and intensified interest in his case.

Inside the court, diplomats from 14 nations, human rights activists and international football representatives crowded the gallery. Outside, Australian ambassador-designate Allan McKinnon pulled no punches about Australia’s concern over Araibi’s fate, while Scott Morrison expressed dismay at the footballer’s treatment.

It seemed those tactics might have backfired when the Thai Foreign Ministry issued a terse statement on Wednesday, urging Bahrain and Australia to sort it out between themselves.

By Friday, it was clear to those working the back channels that Thailand had had enough and was making moves to resolve the issue in its own way.

Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai was dispatched to Bahrain at the weekend and on Monday morning told the Attorney-General that the Gulf kingdom no longer wanted Araibi extradited.

A few hours later, the young footballer was out of prison and on his way to the international airport.