Role for DSI seen in teen sex case

Role for DSI seen in teen sex case

Provincial Police Region 5 commissioner Poonsap Prasertsak has ordered witness protection for the mother and daughter, and moved the alleged police pimp out of the province so he cannot contact witnesses. (Post Today photo)
Provincial Police Region 5 commissioner Poonsap Prasertsak has ordered witness protection for the mother and daughter, and moved the alleged police pimp out of the province so he cannot contact witnesses. (Post Today photo)

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) is being urged to step in and probe a policeman involved in allegedly peddling a girl in Mae Hong Son to work as a prostitute and the state officials and politicians who patronised the service.

The Federation of Assistant District Chiefs of Thailand will petition the DSI to visit Mae Hong Son to get first-hand information about the case and seek prosecution of the state officials connected to the local prostitution network, said federation chairman Boonyarit Nippawanit.

The Provincial Police Region 5 (PPR5), which supervises the Mae Hong Son police, said an investigation was continuing into the local state officials and politicians who bought sex from teenage girls.

The case was exposed in November last year when the authorities cracked down on prostitution rings in Mae Hong Son. A woman who worked as a police informant saw a picture of her daughter as among the girls forced into prostitution allegedly by a local police senior sergeant-major, who ran a flesh trade ring.

The mother complained about the slow pace of the investigation and asked why the policeman at the heart of the flesh trade network was not prosecuted.

PPR5 commissioner Poonsap Prasertsak insisted the police were not complacent as the case was apparently linked to human trafficking. Some suspects in the ring have been caught and the police recommended their indictment in court.

However, the prosecutors ordered the police to further question the mother, the girl and the police senior sergeant-major as the investigation summary was incomplete, he said. The mother and the girl were not cooperative with the police, claiming they feared for their lives. The girl is also under the witness protection programme in another criminal case.

Pol Lt Gen Poonsap said the police senior sergeant-major has been transferred to inactive posts in the nearby Phrae province. Three other Mae Hong Son police officers were also moved out of the province to keep them from meddling with the probe.

Pol Lt Gen Poonsap said he has not seen a video clip of police threatening witnesses not to appear as witnesses in the case.

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