Anger over DSI updates on Surachai case
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) expects terror suspect Surachai Thewarat to implicate expolice and military officers who gave arms training to him and other blackshirt guards, and planned grenade and other attacks during the redshirt protests in May, DSI directorgeneral Tharit Phengdit said yesterday.
"If he agrees to talk about those officials, his information will be useful in linking them with the redshirt movement, as they were present and jointly planned many attacks designed by the late [Army officer] Khattiya Sawasdiphol, whom Surachai was close to. Surachai is scheduled for questioning [today] with DSI agents at the Bangkok Remand Prison. We hope he will talk about those officials," he said.
The suspect's arrest last week and information he volunteered had confirmed intel tipoffs about armed violence by the redshirt movement, and the existence of armed 'men in black', he said, adding that details supplied by Surachai had been well supported by information from the DSI's investigation.
"The DSI is not relying on only information by Surachai, but it has obtained crucial details gathered from three groups of witnesses: the eyewitnesses to the incidents, special witnesses with inside info now under DSI protection, and intelligence military officers who blended in with redshirted demonstrators during the protests in May," he said.
Before Surachai was arrested last week, the DSI was planning to set up another "sting" to buy more war weapons from his network in order to arrest two more suspects linked with the armed violence: Rachote Wongyord and Suraphas Janthima. "But the DSI aborted that plan when Surcachai was arrested," he said.
Pheu Thai spokesman Prompong Nopparit dismisseed DSI public statement that Surachai took part in eight grenade and gunfire attacks during the street fighting in May.
He said the suspect was only 25 and had never served in the military or received any arms training. "He is pictured like a superhero, who could launch many attacks amid tight security provided by tens of thousands of police and soldiers," he said.
He called on the government and DSI to make public their progress on Surachai's case only when it the entire process was completed, saying the government was taking advantage of the case by painting the late major general as a scapegoat to whitewash itself from using violence during the redshirt protest.
Prompong also said the DSI's periodic release of information on the case's progress was also intended to discredit the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship and its leader Korkaew Phikulthong, who is campaigning in a byelection in Bangkok on July 25.