The incident stays one of many deadliest within the long-running armed rise up in Thailand’s southern provinces.
Thailand has mentioned it’ll prosecute eight former safety personnel over the 2004 Tak Bai killings during which 78 protesters suffocated after they have been arrested and piled on prime of one another in military vans.
Wednesday’s announcement from the legal professional common’s workplace comes simply weeks earlier than the expiry of the statute of limitations of the case on October 25 and after a Thai court docket final month accepted a associated criticism towards seven former senior safety personnel filed by the victims’ households.
“The suspects might have foreseen that their actions would have led to the suffocation and deaths of the 78 folks below their accountability,” legal professional common spokesperson Prayut Bejaguran instructed a information convention.
The incident stays one of many deadliest within the long-running conflict in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim southern provinces. The protesters died after they have been arrested at a rally exterior a police station after which stacked on prime of one another behind Thai navy vans.
The federal government on the time, below Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, expressed remorse on the deaths however denied wrongdoing.
Police, in the meantime, initially mentioned some protesters have been armed.
Greater than 7,600 folks have been killed in some 20 years of unrest in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim provinces bordering Malaysia.
Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, grew to become Thailand’s prime minister final month.
Final week, a Narathiwat court docket summoned a former navy commander and issued arrest warrants for six retired senior safety personnel after they failed to look at a legal listening to over the criticism filed by the households.
The commander is now a politician with the ruling Pheu Thai Celebration.