The Nation reports that the “Criminal Court Wednesday dropped the Crime Suppression’s request for arrest warrants against 45 members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy in the airport seizure case.”
The suspects “were charged in connection with the PAD’s seizure of Suvarnabhumi Airport during the yellow shirts’ rally on September 10 two years ago.”
This comes as hundreds of red shirts remain in jail, months after their arrests. So it is revealing again of the double standards at work when the court says “there was no need to rush to arrest the suspects as the deadline for their summons has not been met. Some had informed investigators they wanted to postpone their reporting and they had no intention of escaping…. Furthermore, the suspects’ failure to show up did not hinder investigation, the court said.”
Of course, some 100 PAD supporters were there to applaud the court’s dubious ruling.
Update: A regular reader points out a different version of the story above, which adds the following interesting details:
In a separate case, Ubon Ratchathani provincial court yesterday sentenced red-shirt protesters to jail terms and fines for burning tyres in front of the Royal Thai Air Force’s Wing 21 headquarters, and in front of former deputy prime minister and former justice minister Suthas Ngernmune’s house in May.
Twelve red-shirt suspects confessed to taking part in the tyre burning at the Air Force headquarters and their penalties were halved to 15 months jail and Bt8,000 fine. They were released on probation, but have to report every three months.
Meanwhile, five red shirts who burned tyres in front of Suthas’s house also confessed and their penalties were halved to 14 months’ jail and Bt3,500 fine. They were also released on probation and must report every three months.
Two cars used in the offences were seized.
As PPT has said several times, double standards are now normal standards in royalist-dominated Thailand.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 