From: kamol@ipied.tu.ac.th (Kamol Hengkietisak)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Bangkok Post Jan 28: Saudi case revisited again and again
Date: 27 Jan 93 17:33:28 GMT
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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.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai