Court approves warrants for eight suspects in ‘Rohingya’ graves case

SONGKHLA, Thailand, May 4 (TNA) - The Na Thawi Court here has approved arrest warrants for eight suspects who are allegedly behind a brutal human trafficking network that ran a camp where mass graves of Rohingya Muslim refugees were found. Four of the suspects have reportedly been held by police. Three of them are Thai officials comprising an executive of the Padang Besar municipality and two assistant village headmen. The other is a Myanmar person. Chief of Royal Thai Police Police General Somyot Poompanmuang on Monday held a press to announce the capturing of the three Thai officials. He said surviving Rohingya refugees and witnesses have implicated the eight suspects of involvement in trafficking and detaining Rohingya people for ransoms at the camp, which sits on a mountain in Sadao district’s Padang Besar sub-district, some 300 meters from the Thai-Malaysian border. Police General Somyot said Police are gathering more evidence to seek arrest warrants for at least three more people. He said the case is regarded as transnational crime and he promised to take heavy punishment against police officers found to be involved. The police chief said 26 bodies, 25 males and one female, have so far been retrieved from the mass graves and examinations are underway to determine the cause of their death. Meanwhile, two senior police officers from Songkhla Provincial Police Station were transferred to an inactive post pending for an investigation following the discovery of the mass graves in the province. (TNA)