Chiang Mai provincial court ruled on Wednesday that Lahu ethnic activist Chaiyapoom Pasae was killed by an M16 bullet fired by a solider manning a checkpoint in Chiang Mai on March 17 last year.
However, the victim’s relatives said they still doubted why the court did not consider the footage from CCTV system at the checkpoint which, they claimed, could have given some clues about the real cause of the killing.
A lawyer of the victim’s relatives said he would press the public prosecutor to indict the soldier who shot Mr Chaiyapoom and others who might be involved in the shooting. He also said that he would demand the military to hand over the footage from the CCTV, claiming that the military had tried all along to block access to the footage.
Mr Kingsley Abbott, a senior legal advisor of the International Jurists Committee, who was in the courtroom when the court issued its ruling said the legal proceedings from now on must comply with international standard and impartial and all relevant evidence must be summoned for scrutiny.
Mr Chaiyapoom was a member of the Young Seedlings Network Camp in Chiang Dao district of Chiang Mai. He had actively campaigned for the rights of ethnic minorities to citizenship, health care and access to education.
The military claimed that Chaiyapoom was involved in drug trafficking and they found 2,800 methamphitamine pills in the pickup that he and another Lahu man were travelling.
They alleged that when soldiers manning the checkpoint ordered the truck to stop, Chaiyapoom tried to throw a hand grenade at the soliders as he tried to escape, so he was shot by a soldier in self-defence.
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