There’s now quite a trail of reports on former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban’s visit to the Department of Special Investigation. In many of these reports, the “big news” seems to be that Suthep has taken a swipe at the slippery DSI director Tharit Pengdit.
For example, at the Bangkok Post it is reported that Tharit “may be summoned for questioning over the Abhisit Vejjajiva administration’s handling of the 2010 red-shirt protests…. [He] was implicated by former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban during the latter’s 12-hour marathon questioning by the DSI…”.
To anyone who has followed this case from before the murderous events of April and May 2010, this should be no surprise at all. All of the reports about the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) that Suthep headed show that Tharit was deeply involved. He was “a member of the now-defunct [CRES and] had suggested the invocation of a state of emergency if violence erupted…”.
Tharit’s attempts to slither over to the Yingluck Shinawatra government side and to sit next to Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung amount to nothing more than an act of self-preservation that his (now) enemies in the former government see as a betrayal. Tharit should be at the center of the investigation.
