Crew beg Kazakh leader for help

The five foreign crew members arrested after their armsladen cargo plane was seized in Don Mueang airport in December have posted an online petition asking Kazakhstan's president to help save them from the mistreatment they are allegedly undergoing at the hands of Thai authorities.

In the statement, written in the Russian language and posted on a website with a Kazakhstan country domain, the five men called for President Nursultan Nazarbayev to step in and get them out of detention that is a "violation of their rights and freedom" and is based on "false allegations".

Apart from the pilot, Mikhail Petukhov, who is Belarusian, the remaining crew - Ilias Isakov, Alexander Zrybnev, Viktor Abdullaev and Vitaly Shumkov - are Kazakh. They said their Il76 Georgiaregistered aircraft, flight AWG731/732, was flying from Pyongyang to Kiev under a contract with Air West Georgia under a charter deal signed with the Ukrainebased AirTech.

The crew claim that on December 11, their plane was loaded with 35 tonnes of "machinery" that they were not allowed to inspect at the Pyongyang airport.

The statement also cited other destinations included in the flight log - information authorities had not made public earlier. The route listed in the log was KievBakuFujairahBangkokPyongyangBangkokColomboFujairahKiev.

"The containers looked like those used to store oilrig machines. And anyway, it's not our business to look at the cargo - the responsibility of identifying and inspecting cargo is up to the customs and immigration procedures of the country of its origin," the petition read. "We would have refused to provide our service had we known or been aware that the cargo was military equipment.

"We landed in Bangkok on December 11 and customs and immigration officials approached our aircraft and ordered its seizure. The day after, a large number of troops showed up to take away the cargo. The containers were opened without our presence before we were charged and arrested for transporting military cargo."

The five men also complained that their pretrail detention at the Bangkok Remand Prison was "amid inmates convicted of serious crimes". According to them, there are about 30 or 40 inmates in the detention cell "where we sleep on the floor on thin blankets, without a pillow or any light at night.

"The food is not appetising and in some ways, beyond anything considered 'appropriate for eating'," the statement said.

"We later learned from the media that we were flying 40 tonnes of military equipment without permission, which, under Thai law, subjects us to between 10 years and a life term in prison. What is this? We were just flying civilian cargo under a contract. Authorities in the country where the flight started should be held liable.

"We are just couriers, working as employees for the airliner and under contract with the company that chartered the flight."

Yesterday, the Crime Suppression Division, the main police unit handling the investigation, handed its conclusion of the case to public prosecutors who will later decide whether or when to indict the five suspects.