A Ukrainian engineer who says he was held captive and forced to work at a Bangkok factory for 14 years will meet with officers of the Thai Department of Special Investigation on Monday to detail his allegations, The Bangkok Post reported on Sunday.
Anatoliy Vdovychenko, 57, was rescued from the Thai-owned oxygen equipment factory at the Rangsit industrial complex on January 11 after the Ukrainian consular staff confronted the owner and threatened to call police, the paper reported.
Ukraine's consulate in Bangkok learnt about the captive Ukrainian engineer after a Burmese worker who had left the factory sent a letter to the engineer's family in Ukraine last November telling them of the engineer's fate. The letter also included telephone contact numbers, the paper reported.
The engineer's family members contacted Interpol and local police who then contacted the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, which informed the embassy in Bangkok, the paper said.
''I thought I would be there forever,'' the paper quoted the engineer as saying.
''I stayed for many years in a small dirty room without pay. I worked hard for nothing. They didn't pay my salary and they forced me to work," he told the paper.
Vdovychenko said he had arrived in Thailand in April 1996 as a specialist in oxygen equipment installation. After suffering burns in an accident in July 1996, he had to stay in Thailand to receive medical treatment. After that, he was verbally offered a work agreement by a Thai factory owner.
Soon after that, however, the owner stopped paying him, confiscated his passport and forced the engineer by intimidation to work for him without any pay, the paper reported.
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