More army lies

How else can we headline it? The Bangkok Post reports that the same Army that denied use of cluster munitions has made another denial that beggars belief:

The military insists that its troops and snipers “did not use live bullets the morning Italian journalist Fabio Polenghi was shot dead when the operation to disperse anti-government protesters began on May 19 last year.” Fabio was shot and died late that morning. (For earlier PPT posts on this case see here, here, here, and here.)

A guardian photo

The report states that the bullet that killed him “was believed to have been fired from the direction where military officers were located.” The regime’s political police at the Department of Special Investigation “did not conclude in its initial findings that the Italian’s death was the result of the authorities’ operations since there was no strong evidence or witnesses to support the claims.”

DSI officer Pol Lt Col Veerawat Detboonpha told a hearing “that he had questioned a motorcyclist, Bradley Cox, and media crew members of the Thai Public Broadcasting Service. However, Pol Lt-Col Veerawat conceded that he had yet to get to the people who had helped the journalist, and particularly the person who reached Mr Polenghi first and took his camera away.” The DSI says its investigations into Fabio’s death and that of Hiro Muramoto are incomplete and that its officers need more time.

More startlingly, “Col Trithep Sripunwong, deputy commander of the 1st Regiment, told a TRC subcommittee investigating the incident no live ammunition had been used before noon that day. He said soldiers had moved along Ratchadamri Road before stopping at Sarasin junction. Blanks were fired to clear the roads and to flush out hiding protesters, he said.”

Here’s what the Committee to Protect Journalists said back in July 2010:

The death of Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi is at the center of the competing versions of events. Polenghi, 48, was killed by gunfire on the morning of May 19 while reporting on military operations to dislodge demonstrators along Rajadamri Road, a perimeter of the elaborate protest site the UDD had built in Bangkok’s top commercial district.

Bradley Cox, a Bangkok-based documentary filmmaker, said that earlier that morning troops had fired sporadically from behind a barricade into areas 200 meters away that were controlled by the UDD. Cox said both he and Polenghi had taken footage of a protester shot in the leg at around 10:45 a.m.

At 10:58 a.m., sensing a lull in the shooting, Cox said he moved away from a barricade controlled by the UDD and into the nearly empty road to investigate a commotion among protesters approximately 30 to 40 meters away. Cox said he believes Polenghi followed a few steps behind.

While running down the road, Cox felt a sudden, sharp pain in the side of his leg. It turned out that a bullet had grazed his knee, causing minor injury. When he turned to look back in the direction of the troops, he saw Polenghi sprawled on the ground about two or three meters behind him. Polenghi was wearing a blue helmet with the word “Press” written across the front and back, and a green armband indicating that he was a working journalist.

“My feeling at the time was that we were shot at the exact same time, perhaps even with the same bullet,” said Cox, adding that he didn’t hear the gunshot or shots that hit him or Polenghi. “I don’t know who shot me or Fabio, but if the military was trying to shoot red shirts, there was no one around us. … Soldiers were firing at anything or anybody.”

Earlier, Spiegal correspondent Thilo Thielke who worked with Fabio on the day he was killed, wrote of the day and the events, in PPT’s version:

He states that he had “always doubted that the government would actually allow things to go this far. There were many women and children in the district occupied by the protesters. Did the soldiers really want to risk a bloodbath?” He soon got his answer.

He arrived in the Red Zone that morning to find people “stoically awaiting the soldiers. They knew that the military would attack from the south, via Silom Road, and the braver ones among them had ventured to as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the front line. They stood there, but they weren’t fighting. Some of them had slingshots, but nobody was firing.”

When the soldiers began to move forward, “shots whipped through the streets. Snipers fired from high-rises and the advancing troops shot through the smoke. And we, a group of journalists, ducked for cover, pressing ourselves against a wall to avoid getting hit.”

He observes that even before the final confrontation, the “streets had been transformed into a war zone.”

These may not be considered “definitive” accounts. At the same time, they deny the Army’s account. So too do other eye witness accounts, including that at Thailand’s Troubles and another post at the same site, claiming shooting in the morning. For a reminder of events on that day, see this video.