Thailand Puts Eight Former Military Personnel on Trial Over Tak Bai Incident

Protesters arrested in the 2004 Tak Bai incident (instagram @aljazeeraenglish)

Thailand will try eight former security personnel over the killings of 78 protesters during the 2004 Tak Bai tragedy, which occurred 20 years ago.

The Thai attorney general’s office made the announcement just weeks before the statute of limitations on the case expires on Oct. 25. A Thai court last month received a complaint against the former senior security guard who was being sought by the victim’s family.

“The suspects face (charges) that their actions caused the suffocation and death of 78 people for whom they were responsible,” attorney general’s spokesman Prayut Bejaguran was quoted as saying. Al Jazeera.

The incident remains one of the deadliest in the long-running conflict in Thailand’s Muslim-majority southern provinces, with dozens of people suffocated after they were rounded up and piled on top of each other in an army truck.

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The protesters died after they were arrested for demonstrating outside a police station.

The government at the time, under Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, expressed regret over the deaths but denied wrongdoing. Police initially said some of the protesters were armed.

The Tak Bai incident was part of a major unrest in Thailand at the time. More than 7,600 people were reported killed in unrest in Muslim-majority provinces of Thailand bordering Malaysia.

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Last week, a Narathiwat court summoned a former military commander and issued arrest warrants for six retired senior security personnel after they failed to appear at a criminal hearing on a complaint filed by their families.

The commander is now a politician from the ruling Pheu Thai Party. Meanwhile, Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, is now Thailand’s prime minister. (M-3)