Defence Permanent Secretary General Sirichai Thanyasiri said two military officers were to face criminal proceedings and two others would be disciplined after admitting to charges they leaked stills from closed-circuit TV footage that became damning evidence against Defence Minister General Thamarak Isarangura in one of the country's biggest political scandals in recent times.

It was a result of two weeks of investigation by a committee appointed by Sirichai to look into the embarrassing security breach that unleashed a political storm that is threatening the survival of the ruling party, of which he is a deputy leader. The stills, which were used by Democrat secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban in a criminal case against the Election Commission, suggest a high-level conspiracy to bankroll small parties to run in the April 2 general election. At the centre of the storm is Thamarak, who was caught in some of the stills arriving at the Defence Ministry while politicians of the smaller parties implicated in the scandal were waiting for him.

A central figure in the controversy is Thawee Suwannapat, a close aide of the defence minister, who was instrumental in arranging for Chavakarn Tosawat, leader of one of the small parties allegedly paid to run in the election, to show up at the Defence Ministry along with two other people.

Though there was no evidence to suggest that money changed hands at the ministry or that Thamarak met the prospective Thai Rak Thai allies, the circumstances surrounding the event raised a lot of questions.

And it's rather interesting that the investigation chose to focus only on the leak of the CCTV pictures and not on the more relevant issue of how a group of politicians managed to find their way through tight security into the compound of the Defence Ministry and be only a step away from seeing the defence minister - assuming they never actually met, as Thamarak and his aides claim.

Thawee, who claimed to be working for Thamarak on intelligence concerning violence in southern Thailand, offered an alibi to try to protect his boss. He claimed he brought Chavakarn and the two others to the Defence Ministry because the leader of the Pattana Chart Thai said he had "some information" concerning a political party to report to the defence minister.

Thawee then contacted Colonel Cherdpong Boonyakiat, a "personal photographer" of the defence minister, to arrange for a meeting with Thamarak so that Chavakarn could relay his message in person.  But, according to Thawee, Thamarak was somehow too busy to receive the group and they left without seeing him.

So what was that very important piece of "information" that Chavakarn so desperately wanted to deliver to Thamarak? Judging from the haste with which Thawee tried to get Chavakarn to see the defence minister, the information must have been very crucial.

And yet, till now neither Thawee nor Chavakarn has bothered to tell the public what it was about. And Thamarak himself has shown no eagerness to find out what he missed hearing.

A panel set up by the Election Commission has already implicated Thamarak in the scandal in which he is accused of having dispensed the payments to bankroll small parties in the election on behalf of Thai Rak Thai. The fate of Thai Rak Thai appears to be hanging in a balance as the Office of the Attorney General is in the process of deciding how to pursue the case after the Election Commission forwarded the panel's report to it last week.

The punishments meted out to the four military personnel allegedly responsible for leaking the CCTV stills did little to dispel doubts about the Defence Ministry being used as a rendezvous by conspirators in the scandal.

Who leaked the CCTV stills is in fact a far less relevant question than why the leaders of the small parties were admitted into the compound in the first place. Who gave them the green light? And was the defence minister aware of the presence of those politicians?

The investigation ordered by Defence Permanent Secretary-General Sirichai cannot be seen as anything but an attempt to divert attention from the real issue. The incident without a doubt left Sirichai with a black eye as far as the standard of security at the ministry is concerned. But merely penalising the junior security officials did not answer the core questions.

And what if the Constitutional Court finally rules against Thamarak and the Thai Rak Thai Party, which faces the possibility of being dissolved? In that case, instead of being punished, shouldn't the four security men be applauded as heroic whistle-blowers who helped change the course of Thai political history?

Thepchai Yong