Thailand's post-coup government has re-opened an investigation into ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's war on drugs in which more than 2,500 people were killed, a senior Justice Ministry official said on Thursday.
The probe into the two-year crackdown, which was popular among rural voters but outraged human rights groups, would be led by a small independent body chaired by former attorney-general Kanit na Nakorn, ministry official Jaran Pukdithanakul said.
"Thousands of lives have been tossed away like fish or vegetables, therefore we must find the person responsible," he told reporters. "We must have an answer for society how these 2,500 people died."
Thaksin's government claimed the killings were at the hands of illicit drug gangs trying to silence informers during an intensive government crackdown on the drug trade, but few people were arrested or prosecuted for the murders.
Rights groups, on the other hand, said they were extrajudicial killings carried out by police and security personnel.
Then the prime minister, Thaksin launched a war on drugs in 2003 and won a second landslide election victory two years later, largely on the back of support in the countryside.
At the time Thailand, once a major supplier of heroin from the Golden Triangle where it meets Myanmar and Laos, was awash with methamphetamines made across the border in the former Burma.
The war on drugs cut supply and pushed up prices for a while, but business returned to normal, anti-drug agencies say.
Thaksin, now living in self-imposed in London, was ousted in a military coup last September and the military-appointed government has frozen about US$2 billion (€1.5 billion) worth of his personal assets. He faces a series of corruption charges relating to his five years in power.
Meanwhile, the ex-prime minister has denied allegations that he condoned extrajudicial killings during his premiership, his lawyer said, following complaints by a human rights group that he was not fit to own English Premier League soccer club Manchester City.
"The people who accused him have not been able to come up with any evidence whatsoever to prove that he ordered extrajudicial killings, whether it be in the war on Muslim insurgency or the war on drugs," said Noppadon Pattama, Thaksin's lawyer and de facto spokesman in Thailand.
Thaksin became a billionaire through his telecommunications business. He took control of the Manchester City soccer club in July, but the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch on Tuesday challenged the Premier League's "fit and proper persons" test, which can be used to decide on suitable directors and owners of clubs.
Human Rights Watch alleged in a letter to the Premier League that Thaksin's premiership had seen extrajudicial executions, illegal abductions, arbitrary detention, torture and other mistreatment of people in detention.
However, the league replied that Thaksin was allowed to buy the club because he was living in Britain legally and has not been convicted of any offense.
"I hope the rights groups are fair ... he should be presumed innocent until he is proven guilty," Noppadon said. "I don't see why he would not be fit and proper."
Justice Ministry Permanent Secretary Jaran Pakdithanakul said Thursday the circumstances of the killings would be discussed during a weekly Cabinet meeting next Tuesday and a committee would be set up to investigate. -AP, Reuters
