Thaksin, Officials Mulls New Security Legislation

[george]

Thailand's PM, top officials set to mull new security legislation

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's prime minister and senior security officials on Friday were expected to discuss giving authorities broader powers to crack down on a simmering insurgency in the country's Muslim-majority south that has left more than 540 dead this year.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has instructed officials to consider drafting security laws similar to those in the United States and Malaysia to help quell the unrest in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala - the only predominantly Muslim provinces in this mostly Buddhist kingdom.

Thousands of troops and police have been deployed to the area, which has been under martial law since January, but drive-by shootings and bombings continue on an almost daily basis.

The government blames Islamic separatists for the violence.

On Friday, the officials will consider a decree that would give police more authority to monitor and detain suspects, who under existing Thai laws can only be held for 48 hours without charges.

Detentions can be extended, however, by up to 12 days with court approval.

"We will have to discuss how to provide special power to police and what is the time frame for that, and whether the existing law is enough,'' police Gen. Sombat Amornviwat, director general of the Special Investigation Division told the local Business Radio station early Friday.

Officials are also studying the Internal Security Acts of Malaysia and Singapore - which allow detention without trial.

They are also looking at tough security laws passed in the United States following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

No decisions are expected to be made on Friday, and the proposed introduction of tighter security laws has already met with some resistance.

Although Thaksin has insisted the government will ensure any new legislation does not violate Thailand's constitution, human rights groups have expressed worries that the laws could erode the country's democracy.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu told local television station iTV on Thursday that he was "not convinced the existing measures are insufficient because the martial law has given a great deal of power to the military.''

Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanjana said the government should revise existing laws rather than introduce new ones.

Some proposed measures such as phone tapping and access to financial records are already covered by current laws.

Extending the detention period for suspects could not be done because it would violate the constitution, he told iTV.

A deadly separatist insurgency has simmered for years in southern Thailand, but flared up again a year ago.

Thai Muslims have long complained of discrimination, particularly in jobs and education. Critics say the government has inflamed tensions by using heavy-handed tactics.

-- AP 2004-12-03

[eljeque]

This is Thaksin's idea of security:

Mr. Soonthoon was an official in Phuket

Soonthorn was shot in the back on November 22 while inspecting the scene where two village defence volunteers were injured in an earlier ambush in Yaring district. He died of a blood clot in a Hat Yai hospital on Monday despite making an apparent recovery days earlier.

********Making an apparent recovery.

There was confusion from the beginning over how Soonthorn was shot and by whom, but Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra insisted from early on that the shooting was an accident and not the work of Muslim insurgents, as many initially suspected.

*********Thaksin was in Chile when Soonthon was shot, but he had an answer

to everything upon arriving in Bangkok.

Thaksin lashed out at police for being unable to say which M16 rifle fired the bullet.

******This is more than likely because none of the M16 rifles fired the shot.

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FROM THE NATION

EDITORIAL: A skewed police investigation

Published on December 09, 2004

The probe into the mysterious shooting of Pattani’s deputy governor raises more questions than it answers

It looks like the entire police force has been subjected to the whims of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

On November 23, stepping down from his plane upon his return from the Apec summit in Chile, just hours after deputy Pattani governor Soonthorn Ritthipakdee had been shot the night before, the prime minister ruled out assassination as a motive. Thaksin then emphatically stated that the most likely cause of the gunshot wound in the abdomen of the deputy governor was that the gun of one of his bodyguards had accidentally gone off. From that point on, the police investigation into the mysterious shooting in Pattani was locked into a single direction: the accidental discharge of firearms.

Before Thaksin had come up with his accidental-gunfire theory several senior police officers went on the record saying they suspected that an assassination plot was a likely explanation for the incident.

Soonthorn was shot in the back on the night of November 22 while inspecting the scene where two village defence volunteers had been injured in an earlier ambush in Pattani’s Yaring district.

No other likely theories – including the possibility that the shooting could have been another attempt on the life of a senior government official in the restive deep South – have been looked into during the police investigation. Never mind that in September a judge was gunned down in broad daylight by suspected Islamic militants while on his way to work in downtown Pattani.

Apparently it doesn’t matter that since the beginning of this year more than 500 people have been killed amid the escalating violence that has gripped the Muslim-majority region.

More than two weeks have passed since the shooting, and police investigators have yet to put forward any preliminary findings based on scientific crime investigation techniques, such as the trajectory of the wound and a thorough examination of all of the bodyguards’ firearms.

Once Soonthorn succumbed to a blood-clot complication related to his gunshot wound in a Hat Yai hospital on Monday, Thaksin changed tack.

Having expressed sorrow over the deputy governor’s death, Thaksin on Tuesday flew into a rage when he learned that investigators had failed to make significant progress in the probe into the shooting incident. The prime minister then threatened to remove police investigators in charge, whom he criticised as being inefficient and incompetent.

Assistant National Police chief Lt-General Wongkot Maneerin rushed to the deep South yesterday to personally conduct an additional interrogation of Abdul Waedallah, the man being held as the suspected shooter. He is one of several defence volunteers who had been assigned to protect the late deputy governor at the time the shooting took place. Such swift action was clearly in response to the prime minister’s obvious impatience over the slow progress of the probe.

The police made a suspect of Waedallah because he was standing closest to the deputy governor when the shot that injured Soonthorn went off, according to Police Region 9 commander Lt-General Manote Kraiwong. Abdul has persistently protested his innocence, saying no shots were fired from his M16 automatic rifle during the incident.

Abdul reported to Pattani police last month, denying that the rifle, which he had handed over on November 26, had gone off, causing injury to Soonthorn. Forensic analysis showed the gun to be clean and Abdul was not charged at that time.

So, the question on everybody’s mind is: what actually happened? The prime minister and the Royal Thai Police owe the public as well as the family and loved ones of Soonthorn a full explanation.

The credibility of both the prime minister, who sees himself as a tenacious, CEO-style leader who gets things done, and the Royal Thai Police is at stake. The police investigators responsible for the investigation into the shooting, in particular, have a lot to answer for regarding their professionalism in handling this high-profile case.

To any self-respecting professional police investigator, it should matter little what the prime minister assumes is the likely theory behind an incident like the shooting in Pattani. Any police investigator with any claim to professional and personal integrity is bound by duty to explore all possibilities, based on investigative technique and scientific crime-detection analyses. They should be doing their job without fear or favour – and free from the influence of whimsy.

[stumonster]

Thaksin on Tuesday flew into a rage when he learned that investigators had failed to make significant progress in the probe into the shooting incident. The prime minister then threatened to remove police investigators in charge, whom he criticised as being inefficient and incompetent.

I know who is inefficient and incompetent

when will the thai people tell him his name is richard cranium?

he is starting to pass the bounds of stupidity and move towards the realms of insanity