26.06.09 Rebels target Tak Bai judges
Source: Bangkok Post
Leaked letter warns of further killings
Southern insurgents are threatening the lives
of the two senior judges who presided over the inquest into the 2004
Tak Bai deaths in Narathiwat, a security source says.
The Interior Ministry's intelligence and special affairs office has
sent a confidential letter to the Songkhla provincial court chief to
warn of a plot to kill the two judges who are requesting to be
transferred from the province, the source said yesterday.
The judges presided over a special inquest at Songkhla provincial
court and on May 29 cleared security forces of any wrongdoing in their
handling of the Tak Bai protesters on Oct 25, 2004. They said security
personnel had acted in full accordance with the law and in a justified
manner.
Following a demonstration, unarmed Malay Muslims were packed on top
of one another in the back of military trucks to be taken to detention,
but 78 died from suffocation on the way. In all, 85 people died that
day.
The source said judges Yingyos Tan-orachorn and Jutharat Sansewee
had asked Supreme Court president Virat Limvichai, also chair of the
Judicial Commission, to transfer them out of Songkhla. Their requests
have yet to be approved.
Office of the Judiciary deputy secretary-general Sarawut Benjakul
said yesterday the transfer requests would be raised in today's meeting
of the Judicial Commission.
The confidential letter mentioned judges Yingyos and Jutharat were
the main targets of an insurgency plot. Core leaders of the insurgents
wanted to kill the two judges because of their ruling.
The insurgents had also resolved to carry out more attacks on weak
targets, including teachers, students, children and state employees,
said the source, quoting the confidential letter.
Meanwhile Deputy Interior Minister Thaworn Senneam said security
leaders should withdraw soldiers who were not under the command of the
4th Army Region which directly supervises the deep South.
He said the root cause of southern unrest stemmed from conflicts
over culture and ethnicity which local soldiers might understand better
than their counterparts from other regions.
Pol Maj-Gen Detnarong Suthicharnbancha, the chief of a southern
police operation centre, said a 200,000 baht bounty had been placed on
the heads of the Al-Furqan mosque attackers.
On June 8, a violent attack on the mosque in Cho Airong district of Narathiwat left 10 worshippers dead and 12 others injured.
Social critic Prawase Wasi said the government's policy to increase
security personnel in the deep South would not bring permanent peace to
the region.
He noted centralised power was partly to blame for the violence.
Instead of the use of force, a multicultural approach should be incorporated into solving the problem, he said.
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