Army to make checks on intelligence officers

Army to make checks on intelligence officers

Two soldiers 'leaked information to rebels'

POST REPORTERS

Army chief Gen Anupong Paojinda yesterday ordered that the backgrounds of intelligence officers in the deep South be checked again, to prevent any leakage of classified information to insurgents.

Col Thanathip Sawangsaeng, spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), said Gen Anupong had ordered Fourth Army commander Lt-Gen Viroj Buacharoon to re-examine the history of intelligence officers working under the Isoc Region 4 forward command and those attached to the joint civilian, military and police task force, widely known as the Por Tor Tor.

The move follows the arrests of two soldiers and a civil servant on charges of leaking classified information to southern insurgents.

They were Lt-Col Adul Arateh, 58, Sgt-Maj 1st Class Sulaiman Suenil, 50, and Alal Rakprat, a civil servant who worked for the joint task force.

The two soldiers have been transferred to inactive posts.

The three suspects are now being investigated to find out if other security officers had a hand in passing the classified information to the insurgents.

A laptop computer containing secret information that was traced back to the three suspects was earlier found in the home of a suspected militant.

Apart from re-organising intelligence information, those recruited to work for the intelligence service under the Isoc Region 4 forward command would be subject to more thorough screening from now on, said Col Thanathip.

Pol Lt-Col Wathunyu Withayapalothai, Khunying Potjaman Shinawatra's full-time bodyguard, opens the car door for her as she arrives at the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions yesterday. He has long been assigned to Mr Thaksin and his wife, even during their self-exile abroad. — PHRAKRIT JUNTHAWONG

He said it was unclear at this stage whether the suspects had leaked the information for money or whether they were insurgent sympathisers.

Meanwhile, in Yala, 10 suspects were detained following a clash between a security force and an insurgent group in Bannang Sata district yesterday morning. No security officers were injured.

The suspects, aged between 20 and 35, were detained for questioning.

Police said gunpowder was found on some of them.

Elsewhere in Yala, a Muslim religious teacher was shot dead on her way home in Raman district yesterday afternoon.

Meanwhile, two marines were wounded in a roadside bomb explosion while carrying out a patrol in Pattani's Sai Buri district.

In Narathiwat, a village defence volunteer was shot and killed in Bacho district in the early hours of yesterday, while a deputy chairman of a tambon administration organisation council was shot dead in Yi-ngo district yesterday afternoon.

In Songkhla, two brothers from Saba Yoi district who claimed to have been indoctrinated by insurgents turned themselves in to a border patrol police unit yesterday.