OFFICIALS SLAMMED OVER RAID

Ayutthaya House Hit With 200 Bullets; Yongyuth Denies He Acted On Complaint

The PM's Secretary-General Yongyuth Tiyapairat led 50 commandos on a
raid yesterday on the home of a suspected illegal-drug producer in
Ayutthaya's Bang Sai district that saw authorities fire some 200
rounds into the house.

A 70-year-old man was shot in the controversial early morning raid,
which yielded no evidence of drug production - and has been labelled a
human rights violation.

A source said the raid stemmed from information obtained from the
Prime Minister's complaints box, which was forwarded to Yongyuth. The
complaint alleged that five people in the house were producing
amphetamine tablets, using four machines each with a production
capacity of 1,500 tablets a day.

But Yongyuth denied he based the decision to raid the house on
information obtained from the complaint box. He said crime-suppression
police received a tip-off.

"The news just came out that I led the raid and got embarrassed
because I took the complaint from the PM's complaint box, or I did not
know what I was doing,'' he said.

Yongyuth said an ex-prisoner had tipped off police. "He wants to
become a good citizen and wants police to arrest drug producers," the
secretary-general said.

"He said he used to work in the house filling bags with amphetamine
tablets."

Authorities said they were tipped off that the owners of the house
knew about the police informant and if they did not raid when they did
his life would have been in danger.

The commandos surrounded the house for about 20 minutes and unleashed
a volley of bullets - after being fired at.

The hail of gunfire injured one occupant in the home. Nisai
Satakurama, 70, was shot in the right arm and taken to Bang Pa-in Hospital.

Police surrounded the house at 1am. The property has a metal gate 500
metres away, and a two-metre-high wall. Police claimed they could not
see inside the home because of the distance.

They say they only fired because its occupants shot at them first
following an announcement that a search of property would be conducted.

But occupants of the home claim they did not hear the announcement and
thought the people outside were burglars, so they fired several rounds
using a pistol.

After 20 minutes of gunfire, police raided the house and banned
reporters from going inside.

At 4am, First Region Police Commissioner Lt-General Pansiri Prapawat
brought police out of the house.

Pol Maj-General Kosin Hinthao, Crime Suppression Police Division
Commander, said four shots were fired from the house after police
announced a search would be conducted.

"We saw four or five people escape out the back of the house, so we
decided to fire back," he alleged.

Udom Sutakurama, 65, who is Nisai's wife, told reporters she was angry
about the incident.

She said the house was damaged in the gunfire and valuable items
broken. Police also took a refrigerator that was hit by gunfire.

Cartridges from the bullets fired by police were removed from the
house.

Udom said she was sleeping inside with her husband when she heard
gunfire. Her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law's one-year-old son
were asleep in another room.

She said she thought the house was being robbed, so she crawled out of
the room and returned fired.

Commandos raided the house after the shooting stopped and ordered
everyone inside to gather in the centre of the home.

Police then searched all rooms but found no drugs or drug-making
equipment.

Udom said Yongyuth asked her where she got the money to build a big
house, and she told him she had sold land at Wat Samiannari for Bt12
million in 1987.

She said her husband worked as an engineer overseas for 11 years, so
they were quite well off.

The woman's son Sorakom Intawattana is an Army captain. Sorakom said
he had not stepped foot into the house for 12 years following a fight
with his mother.

"At 4am after my sister called me, saying burglars were attacking the
house, so I went straight to the home," he said.

Sorakom said he arrived at 5am and met Kosin and the commandos, who
were still surrounding the property. He was shocked to discover the
reason police were there.

He then contacted his parents and told them to let police search the
home.

Police took Sorakom to a police station in Ayutthaya and offered to
pay compensation for the damage.

"I cannot accept this. Police accused my mother of being a drug
producer and storing war weapons,'' he said.

"I have served my country for 22 years. This is an over-reaction.
Yongyuth should have checked the information first. What if my parents
had died in the incident?"

Human Rights Commissioner Charal Dittapichai slammed police. "They had
no right to raid and search the house, even though the court approved
the search warrant," he said.

He also dismissed police claims that they opened fire after hearing
the gun shots from the house. "Police returned heavy fire after being
shot at with just pistol. That was an over-reacting."

PM's Secretary General Yongyuth Tiyapairat:

"Today the movement to discredit working people got worked up. From
now on, no one will have the courage to check corruption and public
oppression. It is not that I work to earn fame. It is not me. Whenever
there is a news leak, work cannot be done effectively. We always use
small groups of people and report to the press only when work is
completed. We know what we are doing and we do not harass anyone. We
want to give morale support to working people,'' he said.

65-year-old Udom Satakurama.

"We want senior officials in the government to explain what happened.
We want to call for justice for people like us. Police ordered us to
raise our hands over our heads. We were angry that they did this to us
when we did no wrong,'' she said.