Thai public prosecutor rejects postponed indictment of protest leader

BANGKOK, February 13 (TNA) - Thailand's public prosecutor has now rejected repeated requests of an anti-government protest leader, Suthep Thaugsuban, to postpone his indictment with a court. Nantasak Pulsuk, Director-General of the Department of Special Litigation, under the Office of the Attorney General‘s, told journalists on Thursday that Suthep had his lawyer to seek the fourth postponement of his indictment, reasoning that he had to take care of his demonstrators. Nantasak said that the public prosecutor, this time, rejected the request and ordered interrogators of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to bring Suthep, now secretary-general of the anti-government People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), to the public prosecutor. If Suthep resists, Nantasak stressed, he will face a summons and then an arrest warrant. Suthep has been charged with ordering a crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2010, resulting in 99 people killed, when he was a deputy prime minister of the then Democrat Party-led administration directing the then Thai government’s Center for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) that dealt with protesters. Meanwhile, police brought an arrested PDRC co-leader, Sonthiyan Chuenruethainaitham, from the Border Patrol Police Regional Division 1 in Bangkok's neighboring Pathum Thani Province to the Criminal Court in Bangkok to seek the extension of his detention for another seven days, reasoning that his interrogation has not finished. Sonthiyan’s lawyer, in the meantime, is seeking the court's approval of his release on bail. Sonthiyan was arrested and charged with violating the emergency decree, imposed for 60 days in all areas in Bangkok and some areas in peripheral provinces since January 22. In another development, a big firecracker was, again, hurled at the Hua Chang Bridge near a PDRC rally site in Pathumwan Intersection in Bangkok on Wednesday night, prompting PDRC leaders to have ordered their guards to step up security measures although no one was injured in the incident.(TNA)