Govt needs to get serious about deaths in custoday
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Proper procedures must be followed when suspects die in military or police cells in the far South, Bangkok or elsewhere
Things are not going well for the military personnel running detention centres through out the country with a Pattani resident becoming the third person since October to have mysteriously died while being held by authorities.
Abdullayi Dorloh’s body was found in his detention cell on Friday at the Ingkhayutthaborian Army Camp in Pattani’s Nong Chik district, where he had been detained under the controversial Emergency Law since early November.
Abdullayi was accused of being part of an armed Patani Malay separatist movement bent on carving out a separate homeland for Muslims in the region.
Authorities said there were no bruises or sign of torture on his body and that an autopsy would be conducted on the suspect.
Prior to Abdullayi’s death, Pol Major Prakrom Warunprapa and fortune teller Suriyan “Mor Yong” Sucharitpolwong, two suspects in a high-profile lese majeste inquiry, died while custody at the 11th Military Circle in Bangkok.
As part of “damage control” moves by the government, the Corrections Department has finally granted permission to the media to inspect the army camp in Bangkok where those two suspects died.
Abdullayi’s case will probably not receive the same treatment as the two late suspects in Bangkok. Only a handful of local civil society organisations and family members of the victim showed up at the Army camp in Nong Chik district to demand to know what had happened.
Abdullayi was not the first person to have died while held in detention in the far South.
In August 2010, Mahkoseng Pohtae died in Yala Central Prison while awaiting trial on charges relating to insurgency.
Mahkoseng was arrested in April 2009 and beaten senseless by local police, forcing an intervention by provincial officials and rights activists. Yala officials had to remove him from police custody and place him at the provincial jail. But he finally succumbed to internal wounds and died in August 2010.
Police in Yala’s Yaha district are being investigated. But like other cases, Mahkoseng’s death is likely to disappear from people’s minds.
In May 2010, Sulaiman Nasae was found hanging from his detention cell in the same army camp in Pattani. Army said he committed suicide but human-rights activists and his family said he had been tortured. His neck was broken. There were traces of bleeding in his testicles and anus.
In March 2008, army officers in Narathiwat’s Rusoh district beat Imam Yapa Kaseng to death in front of his son while in detention.
Earlier this year, seven years after the incident, the Office of the Attorney-General suggested that the Army take legal action against the officers behind the imam’s beating.
The authorities can say what they want about these cases but the bottom line is that they cannot expect people to believe them.
They can try to “hide” behind legal and technical issues, such as demanding evidence to show that officials were responsible for these deaths. But all that will do is get them off the hook from legal charges.
Perception and public opinion should matter. With the death of Mor Yong and his associate, the climate of fear is not longer confined to the contested Malay-speaking far South.
The government needs to realise the world is watching; procedures have to be followed, such as court investigations and autopsies for suspects who die in custody. Abdullayi will get his autopsy done but the same can’t be said about Mor Yong, who was hastily cremated.
The United Nations and the rights groups have called on Thailand to end the practice of detaining civilians in military cells. But the beating and eventual death of Mahkoseng in 2010 shows that even police custody cannot be a guarantee of proper treatment of suspects.
And demands for legal action against these officials pretty much fall on deaf ears.
Thailand needs to overhaul its policy and entire attitude about due process and legal proceedings for suspected criminals regardless who is holding them.
