Criminal Court to decide on key Red Shirt leader's bail Tuesday

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BANGKOK, Dec 28 -- The Criminal Court would decide today whether to revoke bail for United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) co-leader Jatuporn Prompan as requested by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI).

DSI director-general Tharit Pengdit Monday submitted the petition to the court to revoke the bail for the Red Shirt leader, an opposition Puea Thai party list MP charged with terrorism.

The petition stated that Mr Jatuporn had broken the bail conditions set by the court. The Red Shirt leader also posed a threat to the safety of witnesses and tampered with evidence and witnesses. In addition, the Red Shirt leader also allegedly threatened state investigators and obstructed their work, said the DSI chief.

The court started considering the DSI request at 2pm Monday. During the session, Mr Tharit presented testimony to justify the request.

The court later said it would rule on the DSI request Tuesday at 11am.

According to the DSI chief, Mr Jatuporn had confused the public by wrongly claiming its investigators of preparing an investigation report of the killing of six people sheltering at Wat Pathumwanaram near Ratchaprasong on May 19 and the death of Reuters news agency cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto on April 10, the petition said. The Japanese embassy has shown much concern regarding the slain journalist, who was Japanese.

Mr Tharit said whether the document leaked by Mr Jatuporn was genuine or not, the DSI viewed his move as violating the law. He said the DSI has not concluded the cases that soldiers were responsible for the deaths.

The DSI chief said he filed the bail revocation request in his capacity of head of the investigation team without any political interference.

Mr Tharit earlier this month submitted a petition to revoke bail for Mr Jatuporn but the court rejected the request, saying there were insufficient grounds to revoke the bail. (MCOT online news)