Pubdate: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 Source: Nation, The (Thailand) Copyright: 2004 Nation Multimedia Group Contact: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1963 END POLICE TERROR NOW Public perception is such that any allegation of brutality becomes believable PM Thaksin Shinawatra, a former police officer trained in criminology, has one more chance to atone for his bloody war on drugs by ending all forms of police brutality once and for all. Almost immediately after lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, who represented a numbers of Muslim terrorist suspects, went missing on March 12, speculation was rife that he had been abducted by a group of rogue police officers. The Thai public, which has grown accustomed to numerous forms of police brutality, including extra-judicial killings, abductions and torture, had no trouble believing even the most outrageous allegations about members of the Royal Thai Police Force. This is a reflection of the crisis of credibility that has faced the police for decades. The force's internal culture is not only a cynical mockery of the rule of law that it purports to uphold, but also one that allows systemic corruption to fester and perpetuate. There was little surprise then when it was revealed by Bangkok's Metropolitan Police that a group of police officers were behind the abduction of Somchai, who is also feared to have been tortured and murdered by his captors. Somchai, who represented suspected Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists and suspects of the January 4 raid on an army installation in Narathiwat, went missing on March 12. According to Metropolitan Police in charge of the probe into the lawyer's disappearance, Somchai's captors may have been motivated by the possibility that they could extract crucial information that would benefit ongoing investigations into links between international and local terrorist networks. On Thursday one police lieutenant colonel, one major and two non-commissioned officers turned themselves in to face charges of unlawful detention and armed robbery. The charges levelled against the police officers were based on eyewitnesses' accounts and other evidence that could be used to tie them to the crimes. It is still not clear how many other police officers - perhaps including a high-ranking officer as the mastermind - - have been implicated in connection with Somchai's abduction, or whether any of the alleged perpetrators had anything to do with the ongoing probes into terrorist cases. For now, it appears that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and acting national police chief General Sunthorn Saikwan have given their full backing to the Metropolitan Police to get to the bottom of the matter and bring to justice the mastermind and other perpetrators in this much-publicised criminal case. The investigation into this alleged abduction and possible murder must be carried out in a straightforward, transparent manner to preclude the possibility of evidence manipulation. There must be no room for deliberately poor preparation of investigation reports that could lead to the acquittal of the suspects. A selective investigation to deliberately omit the mastermind of the alleged abduction, thereby making scapegoats out of the known suspects, must also be avoided. This serious crime must be seized upon by the prime minister, himself a former police officer, as a test case on which he can send an unambiguous signal that police brutality will not be tolerated under any circumstances. But then, it was Thaksin himself who initiated a violent war on drugs in 2003 that left more than 2,000 drug suspects dead, including many who allegedly perished in extrajudicial killings by police officers. The war on drugs earned the Thaksin government international condemnation and undermined the rule of law in our nation. The worst possible thing that could happen to the investigation into the alleged abduction of Somchai is that the probe may turn out to be a sham aimed primarily at placating the Muslim population in the restive deep South. People in the southern region have cited Somchai's case as an example of what they describe as heavy-handed and violent tactics used by police against suspected Muslim terrorists. Religious and community leaders in Muslim-majority provinces have said scores of people have gone missing since police and security personnel launched a massive manhunt for terrorist suspects following the latest wave of violence. In this context, it makes sense that the Law Society of Thailand has called on the Department of Special Investigation to take over the probe into the alleged abduction, because it does not have faith enough that the Royal Thai Police will conduct their investigation in a straightforward manner. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh