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- Organization: Central Michigan University
- Message-ID: <930128.132903.EST.3ZLUFUR@CMUVM>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 13:29:03 EST
- Sender: Southeast Asia Discussion List <SEASIA-L@MSU.BITNET>
- From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
- Subject: TH: Saudi case revisited once again
- Lines: 96
-
- ======================= Forwarded Message ===========================
- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 00:33:28+0700
- From: Kamol Hengkietisak <kamol@ipied.tu.ac.th>
- Subject: Bangkok Post Jan 28: Saudi case revisited again and again
-
-
- INTERIOR Minister Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh has told Saudi Charge
- d'Affairs Mohammed Said Khoja that he will order the police to
- revive all Saudi-related criminal investigations to bring the
- offenders to justice.
-
- Gen Chavalit's personal secretary, Col Sornchai Montriwat, said
- the minister gave his assurance to the Saudi diplomat at a recent
- meeting.
-
- He said Mr Khoja had personally visited Gen Chavalit at home
- before inviting the minister to pay a return visit to his house
- where the cases were discussed.
-
- Col Sornchai said Gen Chavalit had promised then to revive all
- Saudi-related cases to ensure the culprits are punished.
-
- Col Sornchai was referring to the killing of four Saudi diplomats
- in Bangkok in two separate shooting incidents in 1989 and 1990,
- the theft of Saudi royal family jewellery by a Thai worker in 1989
- and the abduction of a Saudi businessman in Bangkok in 1990.
-
- Angered by an alleged lack of progress in the cases, Saudi Arabia
- in 1990 stopped issuing visas to Thai workers. About 150,000 Thais
- were working there before the ban.
-
- Interior Deputy Permanent Secretary Aree Wong-araya, who is
- heading a ministerial committee studying police investigation
- reports on the cases, said he has been told by Gen Chavalit to
- quickly examine the contents of the reports.
-
- He denied that he had been told to specifically question former
- Police Department director-general Sawaeng Thirasawat or Pol
- Lt-Gen Chalor Kerdthet, the commissioner attached to the
- department.
-
- Pol Gen Sawaeng was director-general of the department when the
- three crime cases took place while Pol Lt-Gen Chalor, then a
- major-general, was heading a police committee which arrested the
- Thai worker, Kriangkrai Techamong, who stole the jewellery but
- helped recover the valuables in Thailand.
-
- Mr Aree confirmed that he had ordered investigators to gather more
- information to clarify some of the points in the investigation
- reports.
-
- He noted he was still unable to say when he will be able to
- conclude his work.
-
- Reliable sources said that Mr Aree's committee was ordered set up
- by Gen Chavalit after the Saudi Embassy complained in a letter to
- the Foreign Ministry in September last year about a lack of
- progress in the Thai police investigation in the cases.
-
- The embassy pointed in particular to an impasse in police work on
- the killing of its diplomat in 1989 which was followed the two
- previous murders. The embassy also claimed in the same letter that
- the abduction of the Saudi businessman, Mohammad Al-Ruwaili, had
- been committed by a group of Thai policemen.
-
- The incident occurred on February 12, 1990 following the murder of
- the three diplomats on February 1.
-
- The businessman was allegedly taken in a rented white van,
- followed by another car, to a motel called Chon Buri/Chanthaburi
- in Klong Tan.
-
- He was later moved to Si Racha after his abduction made headlines
- in local newspapers.
-
- The man was later shot in the head, the letter claimed.
-
- The embassy called in the letter for the Government to seriously
- investigate the case to enable relations between Thailand and
- Saudi Arabia to be improved.
-
- The House Labour Affairs Committee complained yesterday it had
- received no useful information from Gen Chavalit or Police
- Department Chief Sawat Amornvivat who were invited to testify on
- the cases.
-
- Committee member Ekkaparb Polsue claimed that both officials
- refused to give details of the cases and the committee chairman,
- Krit Kongpetch of Maha Sarakham Province, who is a New Aspiration
- Party MP, also appeared to be reluctant to question the Interior
- Minister who is his party leader.
-
- The committee will meet again to try to finish its study of the
- case and it may invite Gen Chavalit and Pol Gen Sawat to appear
- before the committee again if it feels the information obtained is
- still insufficient, Mr Ekkaparb said.
-