#4
"Some think he's Thailand's "Dirty Harry," meting out harsh street justice--including summary execution. Others say he's just a tough cop trying to do his job, and that he became enmeshed in a nasty political and personal vendetta. Either way, Salang Bunnag is under intense public scrutiny.
The 60-year-old police general, one of six deputy national police chiefs, faces questions over the deaths of six suspected drug traffickers in Suphanburi province two years ago. He's also in the spotlight for another reason: a defamation suit filed against him by Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart. The lawsuit led to Salang being suspended from duty in July. It's the Suphanburi case, though, that most threatens the record of this athletic, unsmiling career policeman as he heads towards his scheduled retirement at the end of September. The outcome of the investigation could also have wide repercussions for Thailand's judicial system.
Salang was the senior officer present when the six drug suspects were detained in Suphanburi in December 1996, allegedly for trading in amphetamines. The bust took place at a remote rural house but was accompanied by a glare of media publicity designed to reinforce the authorities' crackdown on drugs. Under the gaze of scores of reporters and cameramen, the six were first led out of the house by police, then taken back--supposedly so that officers could search for weapons. The media heard shots. When admitted to the house, reporters found all six handcuffed and dead.
Soon afterwards, the six bodies were cremated without a full autopsy, thus crippling any attempt at serious investigation of the deaths, and the house was mysteriously destroyed. The government initially backed the police: The then interior minister, Sanoh Thienthong, publicly said the six deserved to die. In June this year, however, inquiries into the deaths were reopened on the instructions of Sanan."
http://feer.wsj.com/...08_27/P028.html
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