Only three days after junta chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin hinted that close aides of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra were involved in abducting prominent Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, agencies involved in the investigation rushed to show they had found important clues, as if they were close to cracking the case.

Somchai went missing on March 12, 2004 after disclosing that police had tortured his clients, who were accused of involvement in a raid on a military camp in Narathiwat in which more than 300 weapons of war were stolen and four soldiers were killed.

Over the past two years and eight months, authorities have brought five police officers to trial. In January, Pol Major Ngern Thongsuk was jailed for three years for illegal detention, while the four other officers were freed due to a lack of evidence.

Somchai's wife Angkana Neelaphaijit has tirelessly pursued the case, insisting she has faith that justice will be done and the real wrongdoers punished.

Thaksin instructed the Justice Ministry's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to handle the case and conduct a further investigation to determine whether the missing lawyer was still alive and if not, who killed him. Thaksin hinted he had knowledge that Somchai was dead and that officials were involved in the abduction and murder. The DSI, however, made no progress in the investigation and sat on the case, seemingly hoping it would disappear quietly.

To be fair, the DSI's investigation team might have feared Thaksin's political power. With the change brought about by the coup, Sonthi sparked new hope that the case might be solved with his comments that aides to Thaksin might know something about Somchai's disappearance.

With surprising speed, the DSI team, which had said consistently it had no new evidence to bring any suspects to justice, rushed to western Ratchaburi province yesterday to search for clues. It was the first time they had visited the site. As if it had all happened under their noses, officials yesterday found "something like human bones" in a waste dumping area. Forensic expert Khunying Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand rushed to examine the remains.

The DSI has a story, but no actor to cast in the role of villain. Officials leaked the story to journalists yesterday that Thaksin's aides ordered the abduction and killing of Somchai because he had defended Muslim troublemakers, including suspected members of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist organisation. The action, known in police slang as "oum", was part of the Thaksin administration's move to contain violence in the restive South. Only a few high-ranking police officers close to Thaksin could have been involved in such an "oum" operation.

The officials said the DSI traced a phone conversation on the day of Somchai's disappearance between someone at Government House and one of the five police officers who would later stand trial. The party on the other end of the line was headed to Ratchaburi. The phone contact ended in the early hours of the next day as the alleged abduction team arrived at the waste dumping area and allegedly managed to burn Somchai's body before removing the ashes and dumping them into the Meklong River.

What if Pornthip fails to identify the reported human remains? The DSI believes the phone conversation records are clear enough to convince the court to convict Thaksin's aides. Despite a lack of Somchai's remains to prove he is indeed dead, the investigation would rely on circumstantial evidence to prove the suspects killed Somchai, and the court would be asked to hand down a harsh punishment. The officials said the DSI would issue arrest warrants for the aides soon.

However, Thai courts very rarely allow for such a prosecution. In the trial of Maj Ngern, the court rejected the admission of phone records on the grounds that they proved nothing in connection with the alleged abduction. The phone records might indicate that the users were in a certain place but could never prove that the person to whom the phone was registered was using the phone while abducting the alleged victim. It was up to an eyewitness to convince the court that officer Ngern pushed Somchai into a car.

Previous cases suggest that the courts will only take phone records into consideration if they are submitted in conjunction with other "scientific forensic evidence", such as a suspect's fingerprint on Somchai's car (or Somchai's on the suspect's car). Other such evidence could include DNA tests proving the suspects were at crime scene.

There is nothing wrong with the attempt to use this new prosecution technique in the Somchai case, but the norms of criminal prosecution suggest the court will give the benefit of the doubt to the defendants. In other words, in the absence of solid proof, the court will likely free the suspects.

If the DSI has only the phone records, it will not be able to develop its case fully. If this is the case, all the activity this week in the wake of Sonthi's hints will add up to little more than some political mind-games aimed at convincing the public that the junta has something new with which to accuse Thaksin - but which will not bring justice for Somchai.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation