EDITORIAL Criminals or scapegoats?

Police investigators plan to round up at least two more suspects after they arrested two accused rumour-mongers over the weekend for alleged violations of the Computer Offence Act. Their crime? Allegedly disseminating false information that contributed to the two-day crash on the Stock Exchange of Thailand last month.

The arrests are troubling on a number of grounds. Securities regulators have taken pains to say that no clear evidence exists of share manipulation or insider trading. An investor intent on profiting from a rapid decline in the market can most easily do so through a technique known as short-selling. But activity in the securities borrowing and lending market was quite normal for the week in question. Indeed, many analysts would argue that a decline is long overdue, considering that the year-long rally in global share prices has pushed valuations well beyond both fundamental and historical levels.

Police have yet to say whether Thiranant Wipuchanin and Katha Pajajariyapong, currently free on bail, personally profited from their actions in posting sensitive information on public websites. Ms Thiranant for her part argues that she simply translated foreign news reports into Thai. It appears that their offence has less to do with market manipulation than with falling prey to the catch-all crime of harming national security.

By being charged under the controversial two-year-old Computer Offence Act, they are essentially being accused of using their computers to post "false information" that could cause harm to national security and the public.

Ms Thiranant, a former executive at UBS Securities (Thailand), told the media that covered her high-profile arrest at Suvarnabhumi Airport, that she did post such a report - after the stock market closed for the day - on the news website Prachathai.com.

Police and prosecutors have been economical in the extreme with information on these arrests.

On the face of available information, the charges under the computer legislation are weak. The rumours at the SET last month spread rapidly, and not only in Thailand. Indeed, technology experts reported well before the police that the first mention of the rumours outside the Stock Exchange itself was made by the Hong Kong bureau of the Bloomberg financial news agency and picked up by other news agencies.

If Ms Thiranant is to be charged with translating and re-sending an existing report, why have investigators made no mention of the original?

The Computer Crimes Act, denounced when it was passed under the military regime, has turned out much like its critics feared - being used as a catch-all law to stifle criticism and to intimidate the media. The Bloomberg report did not speculate about His Majesty's health. It reported the fact, as did hundreds of news outlets, that a sell-off at the SET was the result of ill-intentioned rumours.

If this is in itself a crime, then Ms Thiranant and Mr Katha should expect to be joined with plenty of company within the next several days.

A vital and urgent question is whether Ms Thiranant and Mr Katha are scapegoats. On the evidence released by police, the two neither started nor profited from the rumour.

If authorities expect to rebuild the confidence shattered by the October rumour-mongering, they will have to come up with the party or parties who started the ill-intentioned and criminal reports - not just simple messengers who passed them along.