General guilty of trafficking
Thai court convicts scores involved in smuggling migrants, working with gangs
ATHAI general was found guilty of human trafficking as a court in Bangkok yesterday convicted scores of people in a mass trial exposing the linchpin role of corrupt officials in the grim, lucrative trade in Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants.
Thailand’s junta cracked down in May 2015 on a network funnelling desperate migrants through southern Thailand to Malaysia, holding some for ransom in jungle camps.
It unspooled a crisis across South East Asia as gang-masters abandoned their human cargo in the camps, where hundreds died of starvation and malaria, and at sea in overcrowded boats which were then “ping-ponged” between Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian waters.
After a day delivering verdicts for many of the 102 defendants, the Bangkok court found LieutenantGeneral Manas Kongpan guilty on multiple human trafficking charges.
A judge said he was complicit in a transnational organised crime network and had worked with others to facilitate human trafficking.
The ruling is an extremely rare conviction for a senior army officer in junta-ruled Thailand.
Manas, the highest-ranking official on trial, was a top figure in the security apparatus covering Thailand’s south – a key transit zone in a trafficking trail that stretched from Myanmar to Malaysia.
The court heard that he had received bank transfers from trafficking agents worth 14.8-million baht (R5.3-million). But the police investigation found that he had also guided trafficking gangs around checkpoints after their arrival on remote beaches as they headed to the jungle camps.
In 2013, he was promoted to head the Internal Security Command for the entire south.
Junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha was army chief at the time.
Before the crackdown, rights groups had long accused officials of ignoring – and even conducting – the trade in humans through Thailand’s southern provinces.
The trial has revealed a lattice of military, police, political and mafia figures acting as traffickers, agents and logistics men soaking up cash from some of Asia’s poorest and most vulnerable migrants.
Over the years, the smuggling gangs are estimated to have netted tens of millions of dollars.
Some reporting restrictions were placed by judges citing national security and Manas was allowed to give evidence behind closed doors.
Another well-connected kingpin convicted yesterday is Pajjuban Aungkachotephan, better known as Ko Tong or “Big Brother Tong”.
Police accused him of using private Andaman Sea islands, close to tourist spots like Koh Lipe, to shift boatloads of migrants to the mainland, where they were packed into trucks and taken to foetid camps straddling the Malaysia border.
He was found guilty of human trafficking and links to organised crime.
By evening more than 50 people, including two police officers, had been convicted of various offences, ranging from guarding the squalid migrant camps to trafficking and negligence.
At least 10 were acquitted, including an army captain and a ranking police officer.
Thailand’s role as a key trafficking route spilled into full view after officials found dozens of shallow graves in the hidden camps dotting the steep, forested hills of the ThaiMalaysian border in May 2015.
They revealed the horrors endured by some of the migrants, who were starved and held in bamboo pens by traffickers who demanded more than $1 000 (R12 000) for their release.
The verdict is being watched closely inside and outside of Thailand.
The government is desperate to dispel the kingdom’s notorious reputation for human trafficking.
Earlier yesterday, Junta chief Prayut angrily denied that the case reflected systemic corruption within the security services.
Critics say the case was prematurely concluded and describe a trial marred by witness intimidation, secret evidence hearings and restrictions on media reporting.
Amy Smith, of Fortify Rights, said: “We expect there are many more perpetrators out there.”
The senior policeman who initially headed the investigation, Major General Paween Pongsirin, fled Thailand under threats to his life.
He said the case had been pulled before it could delve further into official complicity. – AFP