Red-shirt offers to double rewards
A red-shirt leader has offered to raise the reward to Bt2 million on each of seven unsolved cases to try to hasten the capture of hit-men suspected of killing people during the political turmoil in mid-2010.
Somwang Assarasi, deputy chairman of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, met yesterday with Department of Special Investigation (DSI) director-general Tharit Pengdit and offered his own money to double the Bt1-million bounty on each of the seven cases, to increase the incentive and bring about a speedy arrest of the culprits.
He said other red-shirt leaders may follow in his footsteps and donate assets, such as plots of land, to increase the rewards.
Tharit welcomed the move, saying he had checked with legal experts and found that it was possible for outsiders to contribute to the bounties.
Meanwhile, red-shirt activist Jatuporn Prompan gave a statement to DSI investigators yesterday about the 91 deaths during the 2010 political strife.
He said he told the agency to obtain footage from a surveillance camera installed at the Centre for Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES), located at the 11th Infantry Regiment’s barracks, as he had been informed that Royal Thai Police vans had been seen entering the centre carrying people dressed in black.
He also told the DSI it should question the soldier who collected and recorded orders issued by the CRES, as well as the person who prepared a diagram of an alleged network of people plotting to overthrow the monarchy.
Opposition and Democrat Party leader Abhisit yesterday questioned what he called Jatuporn’s “changing theory” over the so-called “men in black”.
He said Jatuporn had earlier said there were no men-in-black, but now he admitted that the men did exist and that he had seen them in police cars.
In a separate development, Surachai Thaewatat, a close aide to the late red-shirt Army Maj Gen Kattiya Sawasdiphol, told the Criminal Court yesterday that he did not trade in illegal weapons.
Surachai, 28 and a native of Buri Ram province, was arrested on June 2010 and accused of trading war weapons, including grenades, guns and bullets, without permits, and owning illegal firearms. Prosecutors said the arrest of Surachai took place in Bang Lamung in Chon Buri.
The court scheduled witnesses to testify in July next year. Some 28 witnesses are due to testify.
