The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) was conceived and promoted as the nation's most elite, incorruptible and trustworthy arm of law enforcement. In recent weeks, the force has met none of those standards. An investigation by the "regular" police has turned up astounding evidence against the DSI. It not only indicates gross incompetence. It occurred in one of the most important criminal investigations, a case that concerns the entire public.
The charges by Provincial Police Region 4, which covers the Northeast, allege with extremely compelling evidence, that the DSI botched the investigation of the Jomsap Saenmuangkhot case. She is the former school teacher from Nakhon Phanom who was jailed for a fatal hit-and-run accident, and then sensationally charged she had been falsely accused and railroaded improperly into prison. She was defended under a new Ministry of Justice policy to root out exactly such cases of injustice to citizens.
As a direct result of the DSI investigation of this case, the deputy permanent secretary of justice, Pol Col Dusadee Arayawuth, went to bat for Ms Jomsap. Based on reports by the DSI, an independent enforcement arm of the Ministry of Justice, he won a special appeal at the Supreme Court. But the DSI report was hotly disputed by Region 4 police. Not only did they believe Ms Jomsap committed the crime, they took the DSI reports favouring the school teacher as direct criticism of their work.
The Supreme Court justices agreed with police. They rejected Jomsap's appeal. Police didn't stop there. The deputy chief of Region 4, Pol Maj Gen Thanasak Ritthidetphaibul, ordered re-investigation of the entire case. Detectives still found that Jomsap was driving the pickup truck that struck and killed the cyclist in 2005. But they went much deeper. Last week, they accused 14 DSI agents of criminally bungling the entire case -- seven who found Jomsap probably wasn't the driver in the original case, and seven more who handled the investigation for a trusting Pol Col Dusadee, leading to the case being submitted to the Supreme Court.
Police now believe all 14 DSI agents should face disciplinary action for dereliction of duty. Pol Maj Gen Thanasak has made a strong case that anyone could see through an alleged scapegoat-for-hire scheme by Jomsap. Now, in addition to the 14 DSI agents, police have charged Jomsap herself and 12 other people with the serious crime of trying to insert a "fall guy" into her case. If successful, it would have resulted in a false confession and imprisonment of a volunteer, complete acquittal and legal discharge of Jomsap. In turn, that would let her claim heavy damages from the state for false arrest and imprisonment.
For now at least, it appears that police were right from the beginning about Ms Jomsap's culpability. The case obviously still has to pass more legal steps, but the police case looks solid. It will be to prosecutors and the courts to sort out details, including who, if anyone, should go jail.
There is harm all around. The DSI has been made to look like fools. It may turn out that agents and senior DSI officers were bunglers. Even that is not as bad as what has happened to the admirable attempt by Pol Col Dusadee to bring wider and better justice to the country. His programme to investigate possible miscarriages of justice has stalled at the very first test.
The DSI owes a full explanation of this case to the public. The attempt to bring justice to victims of police and prosecutorial errors and incompetency is a huge step to better fairness and civil rights for everyone. Pol Col Dusadee is right that such a programme is worthy and overdue. He must not let this first failure deter him from the effort.