DRUG TRAFFICKERS PARADED AND SHOT

BANGKOK - Thailand executed four convicted drug offenders yesterday in a
partly public spectacle it plans to make a regular event.

"From now on we will conduct weekly executions against drug offenders,"
said Purachai Piemsomboon, Thailand's Interior Minister.

"We are executing convicted narcotics offenders quickly to send a clear
signal to drug traffickers that this government is serious about taking
tough action against them."

Yesterday's executions were carried out by firing squad in Bangkok's
maximum security Bangkwang prison. The condemned men, shackled and flanked
by guards, were paraded before the news media before being shot.

Hong Kong national Lee Yuan Kwang, 47, Taiwanese Chu Ching Kuay, 33, and
Thai national Boonkerd Jitpranee, 40, were arrested in 1993 and convicted
of conspiring to traffic 30 kilograms of heroin.

Thai national Vichien Seanmahayak, 42, was convicted of trafficking in
50,000 amphetamine tablets in 1997.

A fifth man, Ramalee Tayae, 47, a Thai Muslim convicted of murder, was also
executed.

"The Thai government wants to reassure the world that it takes the drug
problem seriously," said a government spokesman in announcing the
executions had taken place.

The government of Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister, declared a war on
drugs after coming to power in February. An estimated 6% of Thailand's
population of 62 million are drug addicts.

Cheap methamphetamines have replaced heroin and opium as the main threat
and are considered the leading cause of crime in Thailand. The pills are
churned out in jungle laboratories along the country's northern border with
Myanmar, which are run by ethnic armies that have signed peace treaties
with the Yangon government.

The army yesterday announced it had confiscated 7.6 million methamphetamine
tablets in the second-largest seizure to date after a task force ambushed a
drug caravan manned by unidentified gunmen in northwestern Tak province
near the Myanmar border.

In all, 325 convicts in Thailand have received death sentences, 184 for
drug trafficking. All but 19 are going through the appeals process.
Thailand has executed 298 prisoners since capital punishment was adopted in
1935.

The Bangkok Post newspaper reported on Sunday that the government has asked
King Bhumibol Adulyadej to deprive drug traffickers on death row of their
right to petition for a royal pardon. The process can delay their execution
by up to nine months.