NINE-YEAR-OLD DIES AS THAI DRUG SWEEP CLAIMS 901 LIVES

The death in a hail of police bullets of the nine-year-old son of a
suspected drug dealer has put Thailand's government on the defensive over a
crackdown on the illegal methamphetamine trade.

The campaign has has resulted in 901 deaths of suspected drug dealers over
the past three weeks across Thailand. A one-year-old baby was killed
yesterday during a drug-related shooting in southern Songkhla province that
left his mother seriously wounded.

In Chiang Mai, near the Burmese border, an army officer was killed, the
first law enforcer to die during the intensive blitz against drug
traffickers since 1 February.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who vowed to break up Thailand's
burgeoning speed trade by the end of April, has demanded officials arrest
at least 46,000 of the traffickers named on his blacklist. But he has
denied a shoot-to-kill policy underlies the scheme.

Some 50 suspected speed dealers have been violently killed ever day for the
past month, the Interior Ministry says. The minister, Wan Muhamad Nor
Matha, warned that dealers "might vanish without trace". Police statistics
scaled back the official death count to 484 victims, and officials say just
22 were killed by police in self-defence. The rest of these deaths are
blamed on drug gangs silencing possible informants. Bodies are found shot
execution-style, each clutching a weapon in one hand and a bag of pink Yaba
pills (methamphetamines) in the other.

The Prime Minister seemed upset by the details of the killing of the
nine-year-old. "Officers are not authorised to simply kill people," Mr
Thaksin said. "I will hold a meeting with senior officers to send a clear
signal that whoever makes a mistake won't be protected."

Chakkapan Srisa-ard, nicknamed "Fluke", was sitting in the back of his
parents' car on Sunday night while his father allegedly delivered 6,000
pills to an informant and was handcuffed by police at a fruit market. As
his mother tried to speed away in a hail of gunfire, two bullets struck the
boy. The police say the car's tinted windows prevented them from seeing the
child. They are charged with manslaughter.

The mother, Pornwipa Kerdrungurang, fled and did not attend her son's
funeral. She is still missing. The police department sent a spokesman to
lay a large wreath at the Buddhist service.

A recent university poll showed 92 per cent approval of Mr Thaksin's tough
drugs policy. Yet 70 per cent feared they might be set up or killed by
police or drug gangs.

Some police operations seem increasingly bizarre as they go after suspects
believed to be major traffickers. Police confiscated 10,000 crocodiles from
the farm of a suspected speed syndicate head in central Thailand. on orders
from the Anti-Money Laundering Office yesterday. One official said: "We
regard these crocodiles as the product of money laundering from the drug
trade."

In other raids, authorities seized $9.4m (UKP6m) worth of assets from
suspected dealers ­ mostly gold, gems, and cash, but including 40 deer, 320
ostriches, 130 head of cattle and dozens of wild boars.

The Thai government has threatened to sack provincial governors who do not
meet arrest quotas. Their three million Yaba addicts include children. An
estimated one billion pills are consumed each year.