PHUKET: DNA samples from the scene of the Phuket murder of Dashawn Longfellow are being compared with saliva from British citizen Lee Alhouse, fresh off an extradition flight to Thailand.

The former kickboxer, held in prisons in his home country for two years during the extended legal argument about his future, will be welcomed at Phuket Prison late today.

Waiting for him at the century-old facility will be Commander Rapin Nichanon, a reformer by philosophy, who has some special arrangements organised.

As of today, there are 2093 prisoners inside Phuket Prison, excluding Lee Aaron Aldhouse. Two of them are British, among 90 foreigners.

Aldhouse will be housed in a renovated dormitory for 20 prisoners, among the smallest sleeping quarters in the prison.

Aldhouse will be given a toothbrush, a flannel, and some shampoo for his pale and tightly-cropped scalp.

Commander Rapin already has an envelope containing 300 pounds that will be converted into Thai baht and deposited in a special account for Aldhouse, 29, at the jail.

The money comes via Intranee Sumawong, Executive Director of International Affairs at the Attorney General's Department, who escorted Aldhouse back from Britain.

Aldhouse will be able to convert the cash into coupons and use the coupons to buy snacks and sweets at the small prison store.

Although the muscular accused murderer will be locked away with all the other prisoners at 4pm each day, each dormitory has one television set.

He can look forward to group calisthenics in the central quadrangle at 6am each morning.

There is also a prison library and the opportunity to play or learn a musical instrument or new handicraft skills in the furniture-making workshop.

Aldhouse is unlikely to join the trusted prisoners who wash cars for a fee to supplement the facility's meagre budget. Female prisoners also provide massages for money.

While Thai prisons are required to provide two meals a day for inmates, Aldhouse, who fought as ''Pitbull,'' will have a generous three meals a day inside Phuket Prison, with a choice at each session.

Perhaps his last real taste of freedom came over the weekend while he was being held at the police station in Chalong, closest police outpost to the scene of the murder in southern Phuket.

Years ago, Aldhouse visited Chalong police station to lay a complaint, as the victim of a hit-run motorcycle crash.

At the weekend his former Thai girlfriend came to visit and was allowed to talk with him.

The woman, said to have been beaten badly at one point by Aldhouse, nevertheless helped him flee Phuket and Thailand. He crossed into Cambodia and eventually caught a flight from Singapore to London, only to be held at Heathrow Airport.

Among the chit-chat that the former girlfriend exchanged with Aldhouse was that she now has a new boyfriend.

After arriving on Phuket on Saturday night, Aldhouse gave police an extended account of what happened on August 13 and August 14, 2010.

His version of the fight that took place that night at the Freedom Bar in Rawai differs from the accounts told by others.

In Aldhouse's account, it was Longfellow, a former US Marine and war veteran, who started the brawl, not the other way around.

Aldhouse, according to sources, told police he was later in fear that Longfellow, 23, would come looking for him and took the precaution of arming himself with a knife or two, just in case.

What actually took place outside and inside Longfellow's apartment leading to his death from stab wounds will be debated very carefully by the Phuket prosecutor with Aldhouse, most likely when the British prisoner next returns to Phuket Provincial Court.

He was taken to Phuket's impressively large central court today, after spending two nights at Chalong police station, to be arraigned.

It's highly likely, given the advanced stage of the preparation of the prosecution's case, that Aldhouse's trial will proceed when he next appears, on December 14.

A guilty plea in a Thai court usually earns an accused a fairly significant reduction in sentence, often by as much as half.

In the case of Aldhouse, who has already made history as the first person extradited to Thailand from Britain under a treaty that's been in place for 101 years, it's a critical decision.

A sentence of less than 15 years would mean he stays in Phuket Prison.

With a sentence of more than 15 years, he would be transferred to some other jail, where the dormitories are likely to be larger, and the population just as overcrowded.