Published on January 12, 2006

Pol Maj found guilty of Somchai's abduction

The Criminal Court today sentenced to three years in jail a senior police officer for involving in the disappearance of a prominent Muslim lawyer, Somchai Neelaphaijit.

However the Court acquitted four other defendants due to lack of evidence.

Pol Maj Ngern Thongsuk is found guilty of illegal detaining and physically assaulting Somchai who went missing on March 12, 2004.

Somchai had defended Muslim suspects in connection with violence in the restive South and went missing after claiming some of his clients had been tortured.

Four other defendants were Lt Colonel Chatchai Liumsanguan, Lt Colonel Sinchai Nimpunyakhamphong, Sergeant Chaiyaweng Phaduang and Corporal Randorn Sithikhet.

The ruling on Ngern was based on an account from a witness who said he saw Ngern pushed Somchai into a vehicle on that day.

Somchai’s disappearance and the trial have put Thailand’s treatment of human rights defenders under both the national and international spotlight.

The international community, including the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the world’s largest Islamic body, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, both expressed concerns about how his disappearance was being handled.

Somchai’s allegations of police’s torture had humiliated the police officers. One of Somchai’s clients told a court that one of the five accused officers had tortured him to extract a confession of being involved in a raid on an army camp raid on January 4, 2004, in which more than 300 automatic weapons were stolen.

The four police officers were dropped from all charges because the mobile phone records which suggested the five had coordinated and were directly involved in Somchai’s abduction cannot be used as evidence.

The Nation

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