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Published on February 24, 2008

Corrections Department deputy chief Police Colonel Phokhapibul Phoratranant yesterday reported on the progress of legal assistance to the inmates who had fallen victim to the police gang.

Phokhapibul said he had headed 20 officials interviewing in front of National Human Rights Commission members the 99 inmates of Surat Thani Prison who claimed they were victims of the gang. He said most testimony revealed a similar ordeal of being abducted from their homes without search or arrest warrants, assaulted and having bogus drug charges forced upon them.

Some said they had been forced to admit to charges of possessing up to 2,000 methamphetamine tablets, he said.

Three inmates claimed the gang had subjected them to electric shocks before throwing them from a second-floor room, breaking bones, Phokhapibul said. The three were admitted to Surat Thani Hospital before being sent to the prison.

He said they alleged that Nat's team had tor-tured them because they wanted to know the add-ress of a man identified only as Praphan, a Surat Thani resident with Bt20 million to Bt30 million, so they could kidnap him. The team learned that a man named "Dam" knew the rich man's whereabouts, so the team went to many villages in Surat Thani to look for "Dam" and arrested anyone with that name for interrogation. If they said they did not know Phrapan, the team forced bogus drug charges on them, they alleged.

Phokhapibul said the department did not believe all the inmates' complaints and he would take each inmate's testimony to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board and the Police Narcotics Suppression Bureau to check if the information was true. He said that if any inmate was found to have filed a false compliant they would face punishment.

The Nation