AEC's term over, but the anti-graft fight goes on

After one year and nine months, the Assets Examination Committee (AEC) will complete its mandate today. Set up by the Council for National Security, the military body that staged the September 2006 coup, the AEC has been investigating and gathering evidence of corruption against ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, his family and key politicians associated with his regime. The AEC has confiscated some Bt65 billion in cash belonging to Thaksin and his family, who derived the money from selling Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings of Singapore.

From the outset, the AEC has been controversial. It was, and is still, looked upon as a tool used by the military to purge Thaksin. Privately, Thaksin has been heard as saying that he would never forgive those who played the key role in overthrowing him from power through the coup and the AEC.

How should we judge the AEC? In fact, we need to look at the AEC within the political context of our times. Most independent agencies were destroyed during Thaksin's tenure. The justice system failed because the police and the public prosecutors turned a blind eye to rampant policy corruption during that time. The AEC was created to pursue the corruption cases against the Thaksin regime because the police and the public prosecutors were not doing their jobs. As Thais know well, the rich in this country never go to jail.

If Thailand's rule of law had been strong, we would have avoided the military coup because the system would have been able to take care of itself. Consequently, there would have been no need to create the AEC. Thaksin supporters, however, saw the AEC as unfair in the first place, saying it was formed with the clear agenda of crushing the former leader to prevent his return to politics.

So far the AEC has worked on 24 corruption cases associated with the Thaksin regime. Out of these, only four cases have gone to the Supreme Court's Office of Political Holders. The first case is the Ratchadaphisek land deal in which Thaksin and his wife Khunying Pojaman are the defendants. The second case is the online lottery scheme, in which the whole Thaksin Cabinet is being sued for abuse of power. The third case covers the rubber scheme associated with the key members of the Thaksin Cabinet. The last case involves the Export and Import Bank's loans to Burma allegedly involving Thaksin.

The Supreme Court's Office of Political Holders' verdict on these corruption cases will be final. There will be no appeal. Rakkiat Sukthana, a former public health minister, went to jail without any chance to appeal after the court found him guilty.

There are seven other corruption cases now pending at the Office of the Attorney-General, which appears to be rather slow in taking cases further. In the first case, the AEC has accused revenue officials of failing to tax Ample Rich Investment, a paper company set up by Thaksin in the British Virgin Islands, after it received the proceeds the sale of Shin stocks. The second case involves the purchase of CTX bomb scanners. The third case involves the underground fibre-optic project at Suvarnabhumi Airport. The fourth case accuses Thaksin of abusing his power by having the telecom concession converted into excise tax to benefit Shin, while still owning the company. The fifth case involved Krung Thai Bank's loan to Krisda Mahanakorn. The sixth case implicates Watana Muangsuk in the alleged corruption of the Ban Ua Arthorn project. The seventh case charges Thaksin of"unusually rich" from his sale of Shin Corp.

More than a dozen other cases are now locked in the judicial process. They might never see the light of day.

So is this a success or a failure of the AEC? As Kaewsan Atipho, the secretary-general of the AEC has pointed out, the AEC is only a part of the judicial process. The AEC's duty is to investigate and gather evidence in corruption cases before sending them over to the attorney-general or the National Counter Corruption Commission. The AEC has no right to determine guilt because only the court can issue the final verdicts.

With the AEC's mandate expiring today, all of its cases will go either to the National Counter Corruption Commission or the Office of the Attorney-General. These two bodies will have to pursue their duties so that the corruption cases go to court in a smooth manner. Once the Court makes its rulings, it will have a strong bearing on political consequences. This is the course of action that will determine Thailand's political future, which for the moment is polarised by Thaksin's haters and his supporters.