DSI to seek Interpol help to hunt down key suspect

[Flashermac]

Bangkok Post

14 Jan 2010

 

 

The Department of Investigation will ask Interpol to help track down a key suspect in the murder of a Saudi Arabian diplomat 20 years ago.

 

DSI deputy chief Narat Sawettanat yesterday said he would visit the Interpol office in France later this month to make a request for the capture of Abu Ali, an Arab businessman.

 

Pol Col Narat said the DSI would ask Interpol to put Mr Ali on its wanted list and track him down before Feb 1, when the statute of limitations on the case expires.

 

"We will ask if Interpol has a file on the suspect and we will ask them to put him on the wanted list because Interpol has more than 190 member countries," he said.

 

Mr Ali is suspected of shooting Saudi envoy Abdullah al-Besri to death in 1990.

 

The DSI investigators believe he murdered al-Besri, one of three Saudi diplomats shot dead in 1990, on Feb 1. The other two were Fahad Albahli and Ahman al-Saif. Another Saudi diplomat, Saleh Abullah al-Maliki, was gunned down on Jan 4, 1989. All were killed in Bangkok.

 

Pol Col Narat said the Saudi government had argued that there should not be a statute of limitations in this particular case because it involves the murder of a diplomat.

 

The DSI deputy chief said there had been little progress made in the investigation into the Saudi jewellery theft which took place in 1989.

 

He said the DSI's job was to try to retrieve the stolen jewellery, which was a difficult task.

 

"It happened quite a few years ago. The items could have been modified making them hard to locate," he said.

 

The warrant for the arrest of Mr Ali is a new development following Tuesday's indictment of five men for the alleged murder of Saudi businessman Mohammad al-Ruwaily, who was last seen in Bangkok on Feb 12, 1990.

 

The indictments came barely a month before the statute of limitations in that case expires on Feb 12.

 

The five, including the chief of Police Region 5, Somkid Boonthanom, have been charged with unlawful detention of another person, premeditated murder and trying to conceal a crime.

 

Mr al-Ruwaily, a relative of Saudi King Faisal, is believed to have had information about the jewellery stolen by a Thai worker from a palace in Riyadh a few months earlier.

 

He is feared to have been kidnapped and killed following the murder of the four Saudi diplomats in 1989 and 1990 and the jewellery theft. His body is believed to have been disposed of in a rice field in Chon Buri's Si Racha district.

 

Acting national police chief Pateep Tanprasert said yesterday the police force would consider action against Pol Lt Gen Somkid and the other police officers once the case was finalised in court.

 

Chavanont Intarakomalsut, secretary to the foreign minister, said yesterday the government had not intervened in the DSI's inquiry into the disappearance of the Saudi businessman.