The ball has been thrown into the prosecutors' court over whether the five foreign suspects arrested in December with a planeload of war weapons from North Korea will face prosecution in Thailand or in their countries of origin.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's Cabinet has been put under pressure to free them for the sake of diplomatic relations.
The Cabinet, acting on a recommendation by the National Security Council, agreed on January 26 to return the five men to Kazakhstan and Belarus. However, a senior public prosecutor said that would be possible only if Attorney-General Julasing Wasanta-sing decided not to indict them for four criminal charges filed against them.
Kayasit Pisawongprakan, director-general of the Office of the Attorney-General's criminal-litigation division, said it would not be practical in legal terms to let the suspects go before they were indicted.
"A statement made by Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya that the five suspects could possibly be prosecuted in their countries of origin may be based on a different perspective," he said.
Kayasit said he was the one responsible for proceeding further and that no government office or official had contacted him or sought legal advice about the matter. Julasing has not yet decided whether to indict the suspects, who remain in court custody.
He did not say when Julasing would make a decision, but the present detention period for the five suspects - the fifth out of seven allowed - expires next Thursday.
The five suspects are pilot Mikhail Petukhov from Belarus and crew members Ilias Isakov, Alexander Zrybnev, Viktor Abdullaev and Vitaly Shumkov from Kazakhstan.
They have been charged with possessing firearms and explosives without permission, smuggling the contraband items in an aircraft, failure to declare the items for duty payment and failure to show a list of the items upon entry. The suspects deny all four charges.
Kasit's secretary Chawanont Indhakomarnsut defended the foreign minister's statement last Sunday at a press interview in Switzerland, saying a United Nations protocol did not necessarily require an indictment as a precondition to prosecute suspects of such crimes in countries where they were arrested.
"It rests solely with the OAG on what further steps should be taken against the suspects under the Thai justice system. The suspects can be returned to their countries of origin to be prosecuted without undergoing prosecution in Thailand. It is the OAG's decision," he said.
Acting Government Spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn earlier said there were various measures by which different governments handled such acts of airborne arms smuggling.
"The government simply reminded the OAG of the possibility of being flexible and informed it that requests had been made to the Thai government by the governments in the suspects' countries of origin," he said.
