Organization: Central Michigan University
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 28 Jan 1993 13:29:03 EST
From:         Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Subject:      TH: Saudi case revisited once again

=======================  Forwarded  Message  ===========================
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 00:33:28+0700
From: Kamol Hengkietisak <kamol@ipied.tu.ac.th>
Subject: Bangkok Post Jan 28: Saudi case revisited again and again


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.
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