Rohingya trafficking case to be completed in two weeks
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POLICE will wrap up their investigation into the trafficking of Rohingya and other migrants within two weeks and seek an indictment by public prosecutors of the suspects, according to a senior police officer.
Deputy national police chief General Aek Angsananont said yesterday that investigators would seek court permission to interrogate some witnesses in advance in order to expedite the process.
He said police expected to wrap up the investigation before June 19 and before the date police were required to release detained suspects.
He said the objective was to allow enough time for the attorney-general to make a decision on indictments.
Aek called a meeting with the investigators after a key suspect, Lt-General Manas Kongpan, appealed to the Court of Appeals Region 9 against a lower court’s decision to not grant him a temporary release.
Aek said Manas was still being detained at Songkhla’s Na Thawee Prison like other suspects after the Na Thawee Court rejected his request for temporary release.
Manas’s lawyer petitioned the court, requesting an injunction against the arrest and detention of Manas. The lawyer claimed that his arrest and detention were unlawful. The court ruled that police exercised power within their authority in issuing an arrest warrant for Manas.
The lawyer then appealed against the decision with the Court of Appeals Region 9.
Aek said that the appeal process would take about seven days.
He said Manas had the right to appeal but police would object to the temporary release of Manas and other suspects for fear of negative repercussions on evidence and witnesses.
Police would adopt the same standards for every suspect in this case.
He said Manas was being detained in the same detention zone as other suspects in this case. He did not receive any special privileges and had to carry out daily routine like other suspects.
As police probed further into the case, any new evidence implicating anyone else would result in an arrest warrant being issued, regardless of a suspect’s profile.
Aek said that so far 84 arrest warrants had been issued, with 53 suspects rounded up and 31 still at large.
National police chief General Somyos Poompanmuang said he had not been informed about the list of police officers who had allegedly received kickbacks from Rohingya traffickers.
The list was reportedly shown in seminars on anti-human trafficking.
Somyos said he had heard that the list only revealed the officers’ names and where they worked – not their ranks and positions.
He said the list was not credible because there was no evidence to substantiate it, unlike the case against Manas in which there was evidence of money being transferred into bank accounts.
He called on people who had the list to give it to him so he could investigate. “We need to find out if it is true so it is not just an allegation without a basis in fact,’’ he said.
The list was revealed by Surapong Kongchantuk of the Lawyers Council of Thailand during a seminar on anti-human trafficking organised by the Thai Journalists Association on Friday.
The list accuses police officers from the Crime Suppression Division, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division, the Immigration Bureau and the Special Branch Police, as well as officials from state agencies such as the Office of Social Security of seeking kickbacks from human traffickers. The amount of kickbacks was also revealed.
Provincial Police Region 9 deputy commander Maj-General Puthichat Aekchat said Malaysian authorities were recovering the remains of trafficked migrants in Perlis state across the border from Songkhla’s Sadao district.
Puthichat said Malaysian authorities would conduct autopsies to collect evidence.
He said Malaysia had asked for permission to enter Thai air space in Padang Besar for using helicopters to remove the remains from the mountainous area and that had been granted.
Thailand had nothing to do with the corpses, he said.
Puthichat said Malaysia had not informed Thai police how many bodies were found or revealed when the remains would be removed from the site.
