Following criminal case filed just before the 20-year statute of limitations expires
PUBLISHED: 18 Sep 2024 at 15: 51
Eight former security personnel were detained in Thailand on suspicion of participating in the Tak Bai protests, which occurred 20 years ago, when 78 protesters were suffocated or killed when they were crammed into army trucks, according to the Office of the Attorney General ( OAG ) on Wednesday.
Six men and two civilians make up the eight accused of premeditated crime with immediate effects.
Although there was no intention of killing, OAG spokesman Prayut Phetcharakhun said at a press conference that using packed trucks to detain protesters was unacceptable.
” The suspects had had foreseen that their actions may have led to the strangulation and incidents of the 78 people under their responsibility”,  , he said.
The news comes only days before the case’s 20-year statute of limitations expires on October 25. After years of legal battles, the Narathiwat Criminal Court finally accepted a related complaint brought by the victims ‘ families against security personnel.
The seven defendants in the latter situation were scheduled to appear in court on September 12 for see questioning and data examination, but none of them showed up. Six of them received arrest permits.
A call was issued for the sixth accused, former Army Region 4 chief Gen Pisal Wattanawongkiri. He is already a list-MP of the ruling Pheu Thai Party protected by parliamentary immunity.
The seven defendants in the first situation are charged with murder and unlawful confinement after failing to handle the show and its fallout.
The two incidents revolve around a shooting incident in Tak Bai in the southwestern province of Narathiwat in 2004, when 78 activists were killed while piled on top of one another in military trucks, and 78 were killed by suffocating themselves.
Thaksin Shinawatra, the then-prime secretary, apologised for the murder but shied away from accepting role. Initial reports by officers indicated that some activists were armed. No one has ever been charged with a crime for the murders.
The assault, which drew international criticism, occurred while the place was under martial law. In the three mostly Muslim provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala, it was one of the most fatal incidents in a dissident insurgency that resurened the same year. Since then, more than 7,600 people have died in the three most moderately Arab provinces.