web DeskThe Attorney General has ordered the prosecution of 8 vehicle operators and drivers who transported protesters in front of Tak Bai Police Station, foreseeing the results of the incident, which resulted in the deceased suffocating and dying. It was revealed that there is sufficient evidence to charge them with murder. The police are urged to track them down, file charges, and send them to the prosecutor in time to file charges before the statute of limitations expires on 25 October.
Office of the Attorney General, Ratchaburi Direkrit Building, Chaeng Watthana Government Complex, Chaeng Watthana Road, Lak Si District, Bangkok – 18 September 2024 Mr. Prayut Phetkhun, Deputy Attorney General of the Office of Special Litigation as spokesman for the Office of the Attorney General, together with Mr. Narong Srirasan, Special Attorney for Planning and Legal Assistance, Mr. Nakhen Thongpraiwan, Provincial Attorney at the Office of the Attorney General, jointly announced the case of the Attorney General’s order in the
Tak Bai case.
Mr. Prayut said that in this case, the Attorney General received the case of extrajudicial killing and the autopsy investigation case from the Songkhla Provincial Court from Pol. Lt. Gen. Itthiphol Atchariyapradit, Assistant Commissioner-General of the Royal Thai Police, Acting Commissioner-General of the Royal Thai Police on 25 April 2024. Both cases stemmed from the arrest of Mr. Gama Ali and six others on 19 October 2004, who were suspects of village security volunteers (VSVs) in the case of giving a government shotgun used to protect the village to a criminal and falsely reporting to the officer that the gun had been stolen by a criminal. Therefore, they were prosecuted for filing a false report and embezzlement.
Later on October 25, 2004 at approximately 10:00 a.m., a group of approximately 300-400 people gathered in front of Tak Bai Police Station, demanding the immediate release of all suspects without conditions. The number of people continued to increase until 1:00 p.m. when Lieutenan
t General Pisal Wattanawongkiri, the Fourth Army Commander (at that time), ordered the rally to be ended. At that time, Tak Bai District was under the declaration of martial law. He also called the village headmen, village elders, and parents of the six suspects to negotiate, but to no avail. The protesters proposed conditions and demanded the immediate release of all suspects. They also booed, chased them away, and provoked the officers. The chaotic situation became increasingly violent.
Maj. Gen. Chalermchai Wirunphet, the first accused in the extrajudicial killing case (rank at that time), called forces from various units and arranged 25 trucks to prepare to disperse the rally. At around 4:00 p.m., the officers dispersed the rally and arrested the protesters and loaded them into all 25 trucks, with an average of 40-50 people per truck, to depart at around 7:00 p.m. to take all the protesters to the Ingkayutthaborihan Camp in Nong Chik District, Pattani Province. They arrived at Ingkayutthaborihan Camp at
around 9:00 p.m. When the detainees were unloaded from the trucks, it was found that a total of 78 people had died. The trucks with the dead were driven by suspects 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, while suspect 7 was the convoy controller. The investigation officers of Nong Chik Police Station, Pattani Province, charged the relevant officers with extrajudicial killing and the autopsy report. The details of both cases are as follows:
1. The case of extrajudicial killing has Pol. Col. Phatthanachai Palasuwan as the accuser. There are 8 suspects in total, consisting of General Chalermchai Wirunphet, the 1st suspect, Second Lieutenant Nattawut Lueamsai, the 2nd suspect, Mr. Wisanu Lertsongkram, the 3rd suspect, Lieutenant Commander Wisanukorn Chaisarn, the 4th suspect, Mr. Piti Yankaew, the 5th suspect, Petty Officer 1st Class Ratchadet or Phithak Srisuwan, the 6th suspect, Lieutenant Colonel Prasit Mathin, the 7th suspect, and Second Lieutenant Ritthirong Phromrit, the 8th suspect. The charges are jointly killing others
with intent according to the Criminal Code Section 83, 288 in the aforementioned case. The investigators saw fit to order not to prosecute, claiming that all suspects were performing their official duties.
2. The autopsy report on the deaths of the 78 detainees, the investigator sent the report to the prosecutor of the Pattani Provincial Prosecutor’s Office in 2004 and the prosecutor filed a petition to the Pattani Provincial Court to conduct an autopsy in accordance with legal procedures in the same year. Later, during the investigation, the report was transferred to the Songkhla Provincial Court, where the relatives of the deceased appointed a lawyer to object to the court’s investigation. In 2005, the Songkhla Provincial Court completed the investigation and ruled that the 78 deceased died at Ingkayutthaborihan Camp, Bo Thong Subdistrict, Nong Chik District, Pattani Province on October 25, 2004. The cause and circumstances of death of the 78 deceased were asphyxiation while in the custody of officials per
forming their duties. After the court’s order, it returned the order and related documents to the prosecutor. In 2005, the prosecutor The documents received from the court along with all the statements were returned to the Nong Chik Police Station investigators so that the investigators could forward all the documents along with the extrajudicial killings to the Attorney General for consideration, opinion and order, who has the authority to order extrajudicial killings in which the deceased was killed by an official who claimed to be performing his official duties, according to Section 143, last paragraph, of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
3. After the Attorney General received the extrajudicial killing case and the autopsy investigation case from the Songkhla Provincial Court from Pol. Lt. Gen. Itthiphon Atchariyapradit, Assistant Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, an order was given to further investigate several issues and the results of the additional investigation were to be submitted by July 31, 2
024. Later, the investigator submitted all the investigation results to the Attorney General on August 20, 2024.
Later, on September 12, 2024, the Attorney General considered the case and ordered the indictment of the 8 suspects, ruling that from the evidence obtained from the investigation, even though the 8 suspects, consisting of General Chalermchai Wirunphet, the 1st suspect, Second Lieutenant Nattawut Lueamsai, the 2nd suspect, Mr. Wisanu Lertsongkram, the 3rd suspect, Lieutenant Commander Wisanukorn Chaisarn, the 4th suspect, Mr. Piti Yankaew, the 5th suspect, Petty Officer 1st Class Ratchadet or Phithak Srisuwan, the 6th suspect, Lieutenant Colonel Prasit Mathilin, the 7th suspect, and Second Lieutenant Ritthirong Phromrit, the 8th suspect, did not intend for the deceased to die, the provision of only 25 vehicles to transport approximately 1,000 protesters was too crowded to be an appropriate method of transporting people. The first and seventh accused already knew that the number of vehicles and the
number of people were not appropriate. The second through sixth and eighth accused, who were the drivers, also saw the condition of the vehicles being loaded with protesters, which resulted in all 78 people dying from suffocation while they were in the custody of officers performing their duties.
The actions of the 8 accused must have foreseen that such actions would cause the deceased to suffocate and die. Therefore, the actions of the 8 accused are a crime of jointly killing another person. The case has sufficient evidence to prosecute, so the 8 accused were ordered to be prosecuted according to the aforementioned charges.
Since the investigator did not call the accused 1 to 8 to receive the charges according to the accusation, when the Attorney General issued the order to indict as stated, the Attorney General informed the order to the Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police to proceed with the notification of charges against all 8 accused, along with informing them of their rights and the circumstances of
the case according to the Criminal Procedure Code, Section 134, and send them to the prosecutor of the Pattani Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.
The spokesman of the Office of the Attorney General revealed that for the case files that the people filed to the court themselves, the accused were not the same group. There was only General Chalermchai who was the only accused whose name matched both the police case files and the people’s case files. As for whether or not the police and people’s case files will be combined, it depends on the court’s consideration. As for the consideration of the statute of limitations, it depends on the court’s acceptance of the case. As for the Office of the Attorney General, there is no information.
For the case of the people, in which General Pisal Wattanawongkiri, former commander of the 4th Army and a Pheu Thai Party-list MP, is one of the accused, he is protected under Article 125 of the Constitution and is in the middle of the House of Representatives session. The court has
sent a most urgent letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the House of Representatives requesting permission to arrest him, including a summons and a most urgent letter to General Pisal stating that the court has proceeded in accordance with Article 125 of the Constitution, requesting that General Pisal make a statement to the House of Representatives to waive his immunity and come to court at the next court date, which the court has set for October 15.
The spokesman for the Office of the Attorney General declined to comment on the reason for the long consideration of the Tak Bai case, but admitted that this was the first time that such a long period had been taken to indict, and stressed that this was a true story, not a soap opera.
Source: Thai News Agency
