Phuket Opinion: Shooting for Island Justice

[Lite Beer]

Phuket Opinion: Shooting for Island Justice
Phuket Gazette -

Investigators failing to prosecute a police officer charged with murder indicates police may be held to a lower standard of justice. Image: Gazette Graphics

PHUKET: The failure of police to bring to justice the man who shot and killed 21-year-old Ekkasit Sangangam in the heart of Phuket Town in early May last year will come as little surprise to veteran observers of Thailand’s criminal justice system.

A low-ranking officer assigned to the Patong Police was arrested and charged within minutes of the shooting, which took place on Phuket Town’s infamous Phun Phol Soi 11 . Also arrested was his brother, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Despite having all of the initial indications of being a “slam dunk” case, police were either unwilling or unable to gather sufficient evidence for the Prosecutor’s Office to try the case in court.

It is of course impossible to know with certainty what actually transpired that night, but the lack of transparency and unwillingness of the police and Public Prosecutor to comment on the details of the “investigation” is disturbing in itself – and will do little to overturn widespread public perceptions that members of the law-enforcement community effectively live above the laws they are sworn to uphold.

At last report, Phuket Governor Maitri Inthusut had yet to sign off on the document sent to him by the Prosecutor’s Office indicating its intent to drop the case. This means there is still time to re-investigate and try to collect more evidence that might lead to a trial and possible conviction.

It might not be easy getting people who were in the red light district in the early hours to testify, but as past investigations into murders of foreign tourists have shown on many occasions, the course of justice can run very swiftly when the police are under pressure to make arrests or finesse confessions.

Sadly, and as many cases involving alleged misdeeds by officials in the past have shown us, the opposite also appears to be true.

Those entrusted to enforce the law should be held to a higher level of accountability than the average citizen, not lower. In fact, our laws embody this notion. Prison terms for human trafficking convictions are twice as long for government officials than civilians, and three times as long for officials whose job is to prevent the illegal movement of people in the country .

To our knowledge, we are the only news outlet to follow this particular case to what some cynics might refer to as its “inevitable conclusion”. For the sake of maintaining public trust, we hope that Governor Maitri will not sign off on the case dismissal without first ordering a re-investigation, or at least issuing a clear statement as to why the officer suspected should be once again free to walk the streets with impunity.

Source: http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuket_news/2013/Phuket-Opinion-Shooting-for-Island-Justice-21569.html

-- Phuket Gazette 2013-07-07

[JulesMad]

Any bets on the outcome?!?

I think I could make a lot of money as a bookie on this case...

(((do NOT tell Phuket police about this bet, I do not want to pay them as well....)))

The whole of Thailand knows the outcome already...

Phuket? Just one word:

[Rorri]

Any bets on the outcome?!?

I think I could make a lot of money as a bookie on this case...

(((do NOT tell Phuket police about this bet, I do not want to pay them as well....)))

The whole of Thailand knows the outcome already...

Phuket? Just one word:

I think you would NOT make a lot of money, unless you believe justice will prevail.

[Arkady]

The governor will probably stall on this one for a bit to go through the motions of reviewing the case, then confirm lack of evidence and drop it. Governors are centrally appointed by the Interior Ministry and have no need to curry favour from people who live in their provinces. In fact they are rarely from those provinces and are usually transfered to many different provinces throughout their careers. They only need to please the top brass at the ministry and the politicians who are all part of the corrupt feudalistic privilege system. Rama V initiated the centalised provincial government system in the 19th century as a sweeping and controversial reform for his time to take power out of the hands of the out of control nobles who previously ruled the provinces as family fiefdoms and retained most of the tax revenues collected for themselves little to finance central government. There has been little or no change in the system since then. Military and elected governments have always seen the benefits to them of the centralised provincial government system of absolute monarchy and retained it.

Even though Bangkok has an elected governor the position has none of the powers over law enforcement that the unelected governorships have and police impunity to commit murder and other heinous crimes is the same as in the provinces. My brother-in-law's best friend was shot in the head and killed on Sukhumvit Road in Prakanong by in a fun killing by a young thug who was showing off to his friends by swing out of a bus window to shot a random pedestrian he thought was from a rival vocational school. The murder took please in front of a bus full of witnesses and the thug was arrested at the scene and initially confessed. However, when his father turned out to be a police corporal or lance corporal the case was dropped and police representatives threatened to murder the victim's father as well. The case was not reported in any media.

Of course there are sometimes cases where police or their relatives foolishly murder someone higher up in the feudal pecking order than themselves and get into hot water. Once some police murdered a some young men in Cha Am, one of whom turned out to be the nephew of the permanent secretary of the Interior Ministry. Initially the case was also dropped for lack of evidence but the Interior Ministry got involved and eventually several police were sentenced to death. The compromise was that their their appeals were endlessly delayed in the courts while they were allowed out on bail. Some of them have died natural deaths in the meantime. At least they were cashiered from the police, unlike the police colonels who sexually tortured and murdered the boy in Kalasin who are still drawing police salaries and eligible for the police compensation fund for police wrongly accused by the public while under sentence of death and out on bail.

[Emdog]

Kudos to PG for expressing that. Now if someone with clout would only read and act on it. I know, I know.... to dream the impossible dream

[BuriramRes]

Haven't we all heard of cases like that? IME it is normally a second wife who either cheats on the cop or simply does not want to continue the relationship!