Police probe into alleged bogus drug arrests and assaults
Metropolitan Police Area 3 chief Maj-General Chaiyaporn Panich-attra on Saturday visited a young man in hospital whose family alleged had his spleen ruptured after being assaulted by police following his arrest on a bogus drug charge.
Chaiyaporn said he would issue a transfer order on Saturday for the three policemen involved in the incident pending a fact-finding committee’s probe into the matter.
He said doctors told him the man’s spleen was only bruised and he did not require surgery.
On Friday, relatives of Somchai Bangsomboon, 35, a security guard at a Min Buri district housing estate in Bangkok, submitted a petition to Chaiyaporn stating that on the night of August 31 Somchai and his colleague, Samakchai Mahamad, were arrested on a bogus drug charge by five men who claimed to be police.
Somchai’s relatives alleged the men were told by the officers to phone someone to clear up the matter or they would each be charged with possession of 10 tablets of an illicit narcotic. It was alleged the police demanded they pay between Bt10,000 and Bt20,000 to be release.
The family alleged that while Somchai was phoning his relatives, police officers kicked his torso twice and he passed out while Samakchai was kicked once.
The family alleged that after both men could not come up with the requested payment for their release, they were photographed with a bag of drugs and forced to sign confessions before being sent to Min Buri Police Station.
On September 2, Somchai’s family secured his bail release but he was very sick. A doctor told them his spleen had ruptured and if he had been admitted to hospital two days later, he would have died.
RELATED