The disappearance of a person and the disappearance of a criminal case The disappearance of a person and the disappearance of a criminal case

Category: Network

Over six-and-a-half years after police abducted and presumably killed human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, no one has yet been punished. The one police officer among five accused who was found guilty of a relatively minor criminal charge and sentenced to three years in jail appealed the conviction and while out of prison on bail himself disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Persons following the case suspect he faked his own death and changed his identity in order not to go to prison. Meanwhile, his relatives applied for him to be declared legally missing on the eve of the appeal court reading its verdict in the case, and now the verdict too has disappeared.Over six-and-a-half years after police abducted and presumably killed human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, no one has yet been punished. The one police officer among five accused who was found guilty of a relatively minor criminal charge and sentenced to three years in jail appealed the conviction and while out of prison on bail himself disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Persons following the case suspect he faked his own death and changed his identity in order not to go to prison. Meanwhile, his relatives applied for him to be declared legally missing on the eve of the appeal court reading its verdict in the case, and now the verdict too has disappeared.

The Asian Human Rights Commission has spoken on the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit on many occasions, but the basic facts of the case need to be recalled here so as to place the latest disappearance in the line of secrecy and lies that has followed the case from its very beginning to the present, speaking to the extent to which the legal system in Thailand can be influenced and manipulated by interested and powerful persons.

At the time of his disappearance, Somchai was working on behalf of five men who had alleged that they were tortured by state security officials while they were in state custody in Narathiwat, one of the three southern-most provinces, which has been under martial law since January 2004 and under emergency regulations since July 2005. On 11 March 2004, the day before his disappearance, Somchai submitted a complaint to the court which detailed the forms of torture experienced by the five men. He argued that this was both a violation of their rights and the Criminal Code, which prohibits torture. He also spoke out publicly and passionately on the case, accusing the police of gross wrongdoing.

On 12 March 2004, one day after he submitted the complaint, five policeman pulled Somchai from his car on a main road in Bangkok. To date, no one has been charged with murder because his body has not been recovered. Instead, in January 2006, the Bangkok Criminal Court ruled that although a group of police had apparently been responsible for the abduction, only one of five accused could be positively identified, on the basis of eyewitness testimony. That officer, Police Major Ngern Thongsuk, is the one who subsequently also disappeared. The court convicted him of coercion, since to abduct a person and kill them is not a crime in Thailand if remains of the body cannot be found. The case then went to appeal.

A judgment in the appeal case was finally made on 10 August 2010, and the Criminal Court received the verdict from the Appeal Court, to read it out. On August 24, the Criminal Court called the parties in the case to come listen to the appeal judgment on September 24. However, through a series of machinations it did not read the judgment.

Behind the failure of the court to read the verdict lie a multitude of problems that are rooted in the deep impunity and collusion of Thai security and judicial institutions.

The first relates to Police Major Ngern’s supposed death in a mudslide on 19 September 2008, from which his body was never recovered. According to article 61 of the Civil and Commercial Code, a person can be ruled legally missing after five years in normal cases and after two in special cases. On 23 September 2010, Police Major Ngern’s brother submitted a motion to have him officially classified as a missing person. On September 24, the date set for the reading of the verdict in the case of Somchai, the lawyer for Police Major Ngern made a motion for him to be removed from the case since his brother had submitted the aforementioned motion. However, rather than accepting this motion, the judge chose to send the judgment back to the Appeal Court for further consideration.

By 15 November 2010, the judgment had still not been read and the prosecutor in the case submitted a motion urging the court to postpone the reading to a later date. It appears that the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), which was tasked with investigating the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit but has consistently failed to fulfil its duties, has again intervened. The DSI opposed the motion to have Police Major Ngern declared as a missing person, but also pushed for a delay of the hearing in this matter. Its motives for opposing the declaration to have the former policeman declared missing are unclear, but the one aspect of the case that is clear is that the DSI is working to further delay the case, perhaps in order to keep pressure and attention off itself.

Close observers of Somchai’s case are concerned that the reading of the verdict will be postponed indefinitely, and that before the next hearing in the case of Police Major Ngern, which is set for 14 February 2011, there will be more delays, disappearances and funny games.

Any further delay in reading the appeal verdict in the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit must be interpreted not as the consequence of slow-moving wheels of justice but of deliberate attempts to extinguish any hopes of justice ever emerging from the so-called justice system at all. The Asian Human Rights Commission therefore calls strenuously for the courts to cease their delays and immediately schedule and confirm a date upon which the appeal verdict will be read, without any more excuses or lies. Thailand’s police and judiciary should not think that the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit has been forgotten. Nor will it ever be, no matter how many tricks police, prosecutors, judicial bureaucrats and others pull to try to make so.
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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

From: http://www.humanrights.asia/countries/thailand

The Asian Human Rights Commission has spoken on the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit on many occasions, but the basic facts of the case need to be recalled here so as to place the latest disappearance in the line of secrecy and lies that has followed the case from its very beginning to the present, speaking to the extent to which the legal system in Thailand can be influenced and manipulated by interested and powerful persons.

At the time of his disappearance, Somchai was working on behalf of five men who had alleged that they were tortured by state security officials while they were in state custody in Narathiwat, one of the three southern-most provinces, which has been under martial law since January 2004 and under emergency regulations since July 2005. On 11 March 2004, the day before his disappearance, Somchai submitted a complaint to the court which detailed the forms of torture experienced by the five men. He argued that this was both a violation of their rights and the Criminal Code, which prohibits torture. He also spoke out publicly and passionately on the case, accusing the police of gross wrongdoing.

On 12 March 2004, one day after he submitted the complaint, five policeman pulled Somchai from his car on a main road in Bangkok. To date, no one has been charged with murder because his body has not been recovered. Instead, in January 2006, the Bangkok Criminal Court ruled that although a group of police had apparently been responsible for the abduction, only one of five accused could be positively identified, on the basis of eyewitness testimony. That officer, Police Major Ngern Thongsuk, is the one who subsequently also disappeared. The court convicted him of coercion, since to abduct a person and kill them is not a crime in Thailand if remains of the body cannot be found. The case then went to appeal.

A judgment in the appeal case was finally made on 10 August 2010, and the Criminal Court received the verdict from the Appeal Court, to read it out. On August 24, the Criminal Court called the parties in the case to come listen to the appeal judgment on September 24. However, through a series of machinations it did not read the judgment.

Behind the failure of the court to read the verdict lie a multitude of problems that are rooted in the deep impunity and collusion of Thai security and judicial institutions.

The first relates to Police Major Ngern’s supposed death in a mudslide on 19 September 2008, from which his body was never recovered. According to article 61 of the Civil and Commercial Code, a person can be ruled legally missing after five years in normal cases and after two in special cases. On 23 September 2010, Police Major Ngern’s brother submitted a motion to have him officially classified as a missing person. On September 24, the date set for the reading of the verdict in the case of Somchai, the lawyer for Police Major Ngern made a motion for him to be removed from the case since his brother had submitted the aforementioned motion. However, rather than accepting this motion, the judge chose to send the judgment back to the Appeal Court for further consideration.

By 15 November 2010, the judgment had still not been read and the prosecutor in the case submitted a motion urging the court to postpone the reading to a later date. It appears that the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), which was tasked with investigating the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit but has consistently failed to fulfil its duties, has again intervened. The DSI opposed the motion to have Police Major Ngern declared as a missing person, but also pushed for a delay of the hearing in this matter. Its motives for opposing the declaration to have the former policeman declared missing are unclear, but the one aspect of the case that is clear is that the DSI is working to further delay the case, perhaps in order to keep pressure and attention off itself.

Close observers of Somchai’s case are concerned that the reading of the verdict will be postponed indefinitely, and that before the next hearing in the case of Police Major Ngern, which is set for 14 February 2011, there will be more delays, disappearances and funny games.

Any further delay in reading the appeal verdict in the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit must be interpreted not as the consequence of slow-moving wheels of justice but of deliberate attempts to extinguish any hopes of justice ever emerging from the so-called justice system at all. The Asian Human Rights Commission therefore calls strenuously for the courts to cease their delays and immediately schedule and confirm a date upon which the appeal verdict will be read, without any more excuses or lies. Thailand’s police and judiciary should not think that the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit has been forgotten. Nor will it ever be, no matter how many tricks police, prosecutors, judicial bureaucrats and others pull to try to make so.
# # #
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

From: http://www.humanrights.asia/countries/thailand