Coup or no coup, case was justified

While Somsak Pola concedes that Thaksin was convicted by a properly established court of law, he implies that the evidence against him was somehow planted. I put it to him that he draws an invalid parallel – there was no physical evidence such as heroin, billions of baht or weapons to be planted. In this case the evidence consisted of witness testimony as to how a criminal transaction took place, and the court summed up the evidence at length and in detail.

It is not for me to express any opinion about the legality of the coup. But I put it to Somsak that, coup or no coup, there was misdoing by Thaksin. If it’s his contention that guilt could only be established by means of a trial following a coup, then maybe I must concede his point, given that, under Thaksin, no public prosecutor would have dared to suggest, let alone initiate, a prosecution. This is one of the reasons Thaksin has maintained that his trial was politically motivated. But this does not mitigate the fact that he broke the law, as established by his trial. There was no tearing up of the Constitution in arriving at a verdict.

To suggest that the conviction was a piece of cake is somewhat supercilious. The case took a great deal of time in preparation and a guilty verdict was by no means a foregone conclusion – how otherwise to explain the presence of the Shinawatra family in court when the verdict was read? Had he expected a guilty verdict, it is conceivable that the hero would have decamped before it was read.

There remain many cases outstanding against Thaksin that have not been completed due to his absence. These are extremely complicated, and if their prosecution were simply a piece of cake, they might have been tried with scant regard to due process of law, which has was certainly not been the case.

Hugh Walford

Bangkok