Mystery death caused by DSI or hospital staff

Top cop focuses on Thawatchai liver injury

The focus of the probe into the death of land fraud suspect Thawatchai Anukul is not on what the cause of death was, but who caused it, national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda said yesterday.

Thawatchai’s death was caused either by the actions of DSI detectives or hospital staff, Pol Gen Chakthip said.

He said people at the Department of Special Investigation or at the Mongkutwattana Hospital had caused Thawatchai’s liver to rupture which led to his death.

The focus of the police investigation now is to determine whether their actions were intentional, Pol Gen Chakthip said.

He said police were trying to firmly establish who caused the death: The DSI officers who found Thawatchai hanging from the DSI’s detention room’s door; those trying to help save his life and rushing him to the hospital; or the people who tried to resuscitate him later, Pol Gen Chakthip said. He assured the public the Thung Song Hong police probe would eventually come up with clear results into the cause of death.

A previous autopsy conducted at the Police General Hospital revealed Thawatchai suffered abdominal haemorrhaging and had a ruptured liver, possibly as a result of being hit by a solid, blunt object.

That has stirred up controversy as to whether he committed suicide or was murdered while detained at the DSI and prompted the Justice Ministry to launch a probe into the cause of his death.

Thawatchai, who had been detained on charges of allegedly issuing unlawful land ownership documents in Phuket and Phangnga, was found hanging in a detention room on the sixth floor of the DSI’s headquarters in the early hours of Aug 30.

Thung Song Hong police chief Mana Phochuai yesterday reiterated his previous statement on Wednesday that Thatwatchai did not die as a result of hanging himself in the DSI’s detention room but his death was caused by someone else, either intentionally or unintentionally.

He said he had spoken with officials at the Institute of Forensic Medicine but declined to give more details.

Metropolitan Police Bureau’s Division 2 chief Charoen Srisasalak said it was wrong to rush to interpret the police wording that “others caused the death” as an act of murder.

Pol Col Mana said Supachai Rojkhachornnaphalai, a cardiologist who took care of Thawatchai while he was in Mongkutwattana’s critical care unit, told him at yesterday’s meeting that he thought it was possible that Thawatchai ribs might have been broken during resuscitation attempts.

Dr Supachai yesterday provided additional information after he had previously stated with police investigators that broken ribs were not detected in an X-ray conducted at the hospital while Thawatchai was known to still be alive, Pol Col Mana said.

Dr Supachai was yesterday asked about the exact process of performing the X-ray on the patient, the device used in the process and effects the 1,000cc of blood in Thawatchai’s abdominal cavity and his ruptured liver might have on the X-ray process, Pol Col Mana said.

Another postmortem was not necessary as initial autopsy results were clear enough, he said.