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Pubdate: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 Source: Scotsman (UK) Copyright: The Scotsman Publications Ltd 2003 Contact: http://www.scotsman.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/406 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Thailand THAI POLICE OFFICERS ARRESTED ON MURDER CHARGES THREE Thai police officers who gunned down a nine-year-old boy as part of a controversial drugs crackdown that has left more than 500 dead were arrested on murder charges yesterday. In a war on drugs championed by Thailand's political leadership, but now under heavy fire from human rights groups, a pregnant woman was also shot to death. The boy was killed by three police officers who posed as drug buyers during an operation in central Bangkok on Sunday night, said police spokesman Pongsaphat Phongcharoen. The men had arrested a suspected trafficker who sold them more than 3,000 methamphetamine pills, the seizure of which has been a central focus of the crack-down. The man's wife sped away in a car with their nine-year-old son. Three officers opened fire, killing the boy while his mother fled on foot. Mr Pongsaphat said the three officers involved had been arrested on charges of murder. They denied the charges. The prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's no-holds-barred campaign to root out drugs, from Thailand within three months, launched with great fanfare on 1 February, has seen about 500 people killed. Bullet-ridden bodies have turned up daily, with drug suspects shot to death by masked gunmen. The Thai police have admitted causing only a handful of the deaths, insisting almost all the killings were by drug gangsters trying to silence possible informers. A police spokesman said yesterday said only 22 of the dead were killed by police, acting in self-defence. A poll published yesterday showed 70 per cent of Thai people were satisfied with the government's tough measures - although about half appear to believe that police were tacitly connected with the string of executions. On Sunday alone, at least 18 more drug-related killings were recorded, including a woman in central Ayutthaya province who was eight months pregnant. Police said they believe she was the victim of a gangland hit. Thailand's human rights commission said yesterday the war was threatening innocent people and urged an immediate policy review. "This is clearly a violation of human rights of innocent people," said the rights commissioner, Surasee Kosolnavin. "Law enforcement officers are supposed to provide safety to innocent people, not to threaten their lives." Mr Surasee said his office had been flooded by complaints from accused drug traffickers told their lives would be in danger if they did not report to local officials. "We have asked the prime minister to investigate whether anti-drugs officers are exerting their power under the law and to say what criteria they have used to put people on their blacklists." Amnesty International Thailand has already expressed its concern. Thailand director Srirak Plipat said the use of extra-judicial force to kill a suspect was a human rights violation if it was not used in self-defence. Despite the outrage, the government has vowed to step up its anti-drugs operations to rid the country of methamphetamines by May. Police say Thailand annually consumes around one billion methamphetamine pills. The stimulant, which Thais call "ya ba" (crazy medicine) and is related to the drug known as "ice", is produced in secluded factories in the Golden Triangle region, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, meet. "If the number of methamphetamine dealers has not been decreased in three months, or just slightly decreased, or the public think my performance is not satisfactory, I am ready to quit," the Thai interior minister, Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, said yesterday. The minister threatened provincial governors with the sack last week if they failed to arrest at least 25 per cent of the listed suspects on their patch by May. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake