Strange story: Tsunami volunteer `abducted'

[kamui]

Does anybody has any idea what's behind this story? Maybe Fly would have known more about it...

 

 

Tsunami volunteer `abducted'

 

Quizzed about her work with Porntip

 

TUL PINKAEW WASSAYOS NGAMKHAM

BKK Post

 

A tsunami relief volunteer who worked closely with noted forensic expert Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan claims she was abducted on Saturday night, and friends and colleagues suspect police involvement.

 

Pol Col Prasert Phannadee of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) said Arunswasdi Pachra Bhuridadtpong, 24, made a statement on Monday attesting that she was abducted by two men about 8pm from the Victory Monument skytrain station while on her way to the Imperial Queen's Park Hotel near Prom Phong station.

 

Ms Arunsawasdi said she was taken to a house at an unknown location and was interrogated by four men who asked her about the forensic identification process at Yan Yao temple, Phangnga, where she formerly worked under Khunying Porntip.

 

``In the daybook records, Ms Arunsawasdi said she was not abused or manhandled in anyway, but the four men took turns asking her the same questions over and over again for hours on end,'' said Pol Col Prasert.

 

When the men had finished with her, Ms Arunsawasdi said she suddenly felt sleepy and by the time she regained consciousness, she found herself standing somewhere in Rangsit, Pathum Thani, and it was almost midnight the next day, Sunday.

 

``Ms Arunsawasdi arrived with officers from the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) apparently acting as her bodyguard,'' said Pol Col Prasert.

 

``Coming to the CSD on the advice of Khunying Porntip, Ms Arunsawasdi did not say who was involved in the abduction and did not want to file a complanit against any individual or organisation but just wanted the CSD to keep the statement as a record that the event actually took place,'' said Pol Col Prasert.

 

Ms Arunsawasdi, also known as Joy, was not available for comment and Khunying Porntip refused to give a statement about the abduction.

 

Joy, a liaison officer for the Chulalongkorn University graduate institute, Sasin, arrived in Phangnga four days after the tsunami hit to help out as an interpreter. Instead she found herself carrying bodies at the makeshift morgues set up by Khunying Porntip and then in charge of burial duties.

 

A month after the tsunami, a team led by Pol Gen Nopadol Somboonsub took over corpse identification from Khunying Porntip, deputy director of the Justice Ministry's Central Institute of Forensic Science. Khunying Porntip has said the police team turned down her offer of help. Pol Gen Nopadol later attributed his team's difficulties to substandard work by Khunying Porntip's team of volunteers. Khunying Porntip said the fault lay with inexperienced police officers and Pol Gen Nopadol's refusal to accept her help.

 

 

 

The reported abduction of Ms Arunswasdi would be the second time a volunteer who worked side-by-side with Khunying Porntip has been mistreated.

 

Thiravat Voravetvuthikun, or Sai, who was the database manager and mediated between police and volunteers before Pol Gen Nopadol took over, complained to the Justice Department early last week that when he made a return trip to Phuket to help a friend find a relative, callers claiming to be high-ranking police officers ordered him to leave the area and never come back, on pain of death.

 

Mr Thiravat is reportedly under DSI protection and could not be reached.

 

Dr Stephen Wilson, who was on vacation here from Hawaii before deciding to help Khunying Porntip, said he knew the two volunteers well. The only rational explanation he could think of was that they might have stumbled on something big or knew something they were not supposed to know.

 

``Many of the other volunteers are coming up with the same conclusions,'' Dr Wilson said. ``Many of us suspect police involvement in this masquerade.''

 

Pol Gen Nopadol categorically denied any involvement in the affair.

 

``I would like to say once and for all, we do not have any problems with Khunying Porntip or her people and there would be no reason for police to commit such an outrageous act,'' he said.