Pubdate: Fri, 19 Dec 2003
Source: Nation, The (Thailand)
Copyright: 2003 Nation Multimedia Group
Contact:  http://www.nationmultimedia.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1963

POLICE LOWER DRUG-WAR DEATH TOLL TO 1,329

Police have revised downward the number of violent deaths during the first 
three months of the war on drugs from 2,921 to 1,329, claiming the rest of 
the killings were unrelated to drugs, a well informed police source said 
yesterday.

The figures are part of a report compiled by Pol Lt-General Nawin 
Singhapalit, who is in charge of reinvestigating the unusually high death 
toll in the February 1 to April 30 drug war.

The figures from the report are to be announced by police commissioner 
General Sant Sarutanond at 11am today.

The government scrambled to recheck the figures after His Majesty the King 
said in his birthday speech that the administration should clarify the high 
number of deaths during the first phase of the government's war on illegal 
drugs.

According to the source, Nawin's report states that a total of 2,921 deaths 
occurred in 2,656 murder cases during the three months.

Of these, 58 cases involved confirmed extra-judicial killings by police 
while making arrests. There were 72 people killed in these incidents. Of 
the 58 cases, the report says, 12 were not related to drug suppression, and 
15 people were killed in these 12 cases.

The report says that 1,422 cases involving 1,502 deaths were not drug 
related. The police source declined to explain why these cases had been 
separated out or how many of them had been solved.

The report says 1,329 people were killed in 1,176 incidents confirmed as 
related to the drug trade. The report says that only 23 out of the 1,176 
confirmed drug-related cases had been solved and that 23 suspects had been 
arrested.

For the rest, police still do not know who was behind the killings, it 
says. Sant has reiterated that drug-related killings were either 
"silencings" or "gangsters fighting amongst themselves".

During the first phase of the war on drugs, police always shrugged off the 
rise in the number of murders, saying they were "silencings" or murders 
carried out on the orders of drug bosses to prevent the victim being linked 
to them. Human-rights activists suspect police initiated a terror campaign 
to intimidate drug traffickers.
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