The Narathiwat provincial court will wait until midnight on October 25 for the seven defendants in the Tak Bai massacre case to appear to stand trial, according to the panel of three judges responsible for handling the case.
The defendants did not show for the hearing today.
The judges said that, if none of the seven defendants show up voluntarily or if they cannot be brought to stand trial by the police by October 25th, the court will not immediately drop the case, but will wait the full 24 hours of October 25, to give them a last chance to appear.
After midnight, the statute limitations of the case will expire and the case will automatically be dropped. The judges will then meet again on October 28th to discuss the case.
In the absence of the seven defendants today, the court allowed the prosecutor and relatives of the victims to make statements to the court, but their statements will not be officially recorded due to the absence of the defendants.
One of the relatives, Muhamad So-aree Useng, told the court that the relatives of the victims will lose faith in the Thai justice system if the case is dropped due to the expiry of the 20-year statute of limitations.
Addressing the court, People’s party MP Romadon Panjor thanked all the 48 relatives of the massacre victims for their courage in taking the case to court. He said that, personally, he hopes that the defendants will, ultimately, show up to stand trial, as he warned that their failure to do so will be a major disservice to the people.
The seven defendants are:
• General Pisan Wattanawongkiri, former commander of Fourth Army Region and former Pheu Thai MP
• General Chalermchai Wirunpeth, former commander of the 5th Infantry Division
• Pol Gen Wongkot Maneerin, former director of Royal Thai Police’s Forward Command Centre
• Pol Lt-Gen Manot Kraiwong, former commissioner of 9th Region Provincial Police Bureau
• Pol Maj-Gen Saksommai Putthakul, former superintendent of Tak Bai district police
• Siwa Sangmanee, former deputy interior permanent secretary general
• Wichom Thongsong, former governor of Narathiwat.
The Tak Bai incident occurred on October 25, 2004, during a protest by about 1,500 Thai Muslims in front of the Tak Bai district police station in Narathiwat. They were protesting against the detention of six defence volunteers, accused of handing over their service shotguns to insurgents.
The protest turned violent when the protesters attempted to enter the station and were met with a barrage of teargas and water cannons. The crowd responded by throwing stones and live ammunition was fired, resulting in six protesters being killed.
About 1,300 protesters were arrested at the scene, 78 of whom died from suffocation and organ failure after being stacked on top of each other in trucks during a five-hour journey from Tak Bai to an army barracks in Pattani province.
