END POLICE TERROR NOW

Public perception is such that any allegation of brutality becomes
believable

PM Thaksin Shinawatra, a former police officer trained in criminology, has
one more chance to atone for his bloody war on drugs by ending all forms of
police brutality once and for all. Almost immediately after lawyer Somchai
Neelapaijit, who represented a numbers of Muslim terrorist suspects, went
missing on March 12, speculation was rife that he had been abducted by a
group of rogue police officers. The Thai public, which has grown accustomed
to numerous forms of police brutality, including extra-judicial killings,
abductions and torture, had no trouble believing even the most outrageous
allegations about members of the Royal Thai Police Force.

This is a reflection of the crisis of credibility that has faced the police
for decades. The force's internal culture is not only a cynical mockery of
the rule of law that it purports to uphold, but also one that allows
systemic corruption to fester and perpetuate. There was little surprise then
when it was revealed by Bangkok's Metropolitan Police that a group of police
officers were behind the abduction of Somchai, who is also feared to have
been tortured and murdered by his captors.

Somchai, who represented suspected Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists and suspects
of the January 4 raid on an army installation in Narathiwat, went missing on
March 12.

According to Metropolitan Police in charge of the probe into the lawyer's
disappearance, Somchai's captors may have been motivated by the possibility
that they could extract crucial information that would benefit ongoing
investigations into links between international and local terrorist
networks.

On Thursday one police lieutenant colonel, one major and two
non-commissioned officers turned themselves in to face charges of unlawful
detention and armed robbery. The charges levelled against the police
officers were based on eyewitnesses' accounts and other evidence that could
be used to tie them to the crimes. It is still not clear how many other
police officers - perhaps including a high-ranking officer as the mastermind
- - have been implicated in connection with Somchai's abduction, or whether
any of the alleged perpetrators had anything to do with the ongoing probes
into terrorist cases.

For now, it appears that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and acting
national police chief General Sunthorn Saikwan have given their full backing
to the Metropolitan Police to get to the bottom of the matter and bring to
justice the mastermind and other perpetrators in this much-publicised
criminal case.

The investigation into this alleged abduction and possible murder must be
carried out in a straightforward, transparent manner to preclude the
possibility of evidence manipulation. There must be no room for deliberately
poor preparation of investigation reports that could lead to the acquittal
of the suspects. A selective investigation to deliberately omit the
mastermind of the alleged abduction, thereby making scapegoats out of the
known suspects, must also be avoided. This serious crime must be seized upon
by the prime minister, himself a former police officer, as a test case on
which he can send an unambiguous signal that police brutality will not be
tolerated under any circumstances.

But then, it was Thaksin himself who initiated a violent war on drugs in
2003 that left more than 2,000 drug suspects dead, including many who
allegedly perished in extrajudicial killings by police officers. The war on
drugs earned the Thaksin government international condemnation and
undermined the rule of law in our nation.

The worst possible thing that could happen to the investigation into the
alleged abduction of Somchai is that the probe may turn out to be a sham
aimed primarily at placating the Muslim population in the restive deep
South.

People in the southern region have cited Somchai's case as an example of
what they describe as heavy-handed and violent tactics used by police
against suspected Muslim terrorists.

Religious and community leaders in Muslim-majority provinces have said
scores of people have gone missing since police and security personnel
launched a massive manhunt for terrorist suspects following the latest wave
of violence. In this context, it makes sense that the Law Society of
Thailand has called on the Department of Special Investigation to take over
the probe into the alleged abduction, because it does not have faith enough
that the Royal Thai Police will conduct their investigation in a
straightforward manner.