Published on January 12, 2006
The Central Criminal Court will today hand down its verdict in the case of a prominent Muslim lawyer’s disappearance that resulted in five police officers being charged with theft and illegal detention.
Somchai Neelaphaijit, who had defended Muslim suspects in connection with violence in the restive South, went missing on March 12, 2004, after claiming some of his clients had been tortured.
Lt-Colonel Chatchai Liumsanguan, Lt-Colonel Sinchai Nimpunyakhamphong, Major Ngern Thongsuk, Sergeant Chaiyaweng Phaduang and Corporal Randorn Sithikhet were accused of abducting the lawyer. 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. Prosecutors said that Somchai’s allegations of 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. Prosecutors alleged that abducting Somchai was a neat solution to the problem of a troublesome lawyer and gave police a free hand to incarcerate the Muslim suspects. Mobile phone records suggested that the five had coordinated and were directly involved in Somchai’s abduction. The prosecutors brought eyewitnesses to the stand who testified they had seen the five officers kidnap the lawyer. However, the five police officers argued that the phone records were fabricated and that they were nowhere near the scene of the abduction, near Hua Mark police station, on the day of the crime. They told the court the eyewitnesses had it all wrong. Somchai’s wife, Angkana Neelaphaijit, said in a statement obtained by The Nation yesterday that her family had a right to justice, because Somchai had championed human rights for years before he went missing. His work had contributed to improvements in human rights and the country’s justice system, she said. “We should take into account that Khun Somchai had strongly criticised how police handled cases concerning violence in the deep South, accusing police of misconduct and human rights violation,” she said. Supalak Ganjanakhundee The Nation
Post your comment to this story here