The Thai Attorney General’s office has announced it will prosecute eight former security personnel in connection with the 2004 Tak Bai killings, where 78 protesters died after being suffocated in overcrowded army trucks, Al Jazeera reports.
The announcement comes just weeks before the statute of limitations on the case expires on October 25.
The incident remains one of the deadliest in the long-running conflict in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim southern provinces. The protesters, arrested at a rally outside a police station, were piled on top of each other in the back of military trucks, leading to their suffocation.
This decision follows last month’s acceptance by a Thai court of a complaint filed by the victims’ families against seven former senior security personnel. Last week, a Narathiwat court summoned a former military commander, now a politician with the ruling Pheu Thai Party, and issued arrest warrants for six retired senior personnel after they failed to appear for a hearing on the complaint.
“The suspects could have foreseen that their actions would have led to the suffocation and deaths of the 78 people under their responsibility,” Attorney General spokesperson Prayut Bejaguran said.
The government at the time, led by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, expressed regret over the deaths but denied any wrongdoing. Police initially claimed some protesters were armed.
The Tak Bai killings have long been a source of tension and mistrust between the Thai government and the Muslim community in the southern provinces. Over 7,600 people have been killed in the past two decades of unrest in these regions bordering Malaysia.
This prosecution comes amid a complex political climate in Thailand. Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, became Prime Minister last month.
