PRESS RELEASE
AHRC-PL-37-2005

Thai police "aiming to sabotage" missing-persons centre, AHRC says

(Hong Kong, June 9, 2005) The Thai police are attempting to sabotage the country's proposed missing-persons centre, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) charged on Thursday.

The Hong Kong-based regional group said in a statement that the police were trying to take control of the proposed centre, an initiative of the deputy director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science (CIFS), in order to destroy it.

The deputy director, Porntip Rojanasunan, was informed by senior government officials on Monday that the police had been given the go-ahead to establish the centre.

"This latest move to take control over the proposed centre is a blatant attempt to defeat its very purpose, which must be strongly resisted from all quarters," the AHRC said.

"Giving the police control over the proposed missing-persons centre would do nothing towards the reliable and credible identifying of human remains and tracing of criminal perpetrators in Thailand," it said.

The AHRC pointed out that at present the CIFS, with only rudimentary coverage of four provinces in Thailand, already receives the remains of some 200 unidentified persons annually, but gets little or no help from the police in addressing these cases.

In many instances the police are suspected of being involved in the disappearances and killings, the AHRC said, pointing to the case of missing human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit.

Over one year after Somchai's abduction, the case remains unresolved.   

"It is widely acknowledged that someone senior in the government or police was behind his disappearance," the AHRC said.
 
The investigation of Somchai's case had remained with the police throughout, it noted.

It also pointed to two recent killings ruled suicides by the police as examples of the need for independent agencies to investigate and report on suspicious deaths and disappearances.

In one case staff from the CIFS found that the victim had two bullets in his brain; in the other, four in his chest and one in his brain.

"In both cases the bodies had apparently been moved after the killings; in the latter case, the 'suicide' had come at the end of a stand off with police," the AHRC said.

It called upon human rights groups in Thailand to defend the proposal that the missing-persons centre be initiated under the CIFS.

It also urged them to become more active in campaigning on forensic science issues, noting that "the effectiveness of their future work depends very much upon the development of a well-funded and independently functioning nationwide forensic science institute".

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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.