A Bangkok criminal court dismissed kidnap and murder charges Monday against five Thai police officers in a long running case involving theft and numerous murders that has severely strained Thai-Saudi diplomatic relations for 24 years.
Saudi authorities and members of the family of Muhammad al-Ruwaili, a Saudi businessman central to the case who disappeared in Bangkok in 1990, immediately expressed “dissatisfaction” and “disappointment” with the ruling.
“They did not show a fair judgment. I am very disappointed. I have not waited 24 years to hear a judgment like this,” Ateeq al-Ruwaili, Muhammad's elder brother, told reporters.
The disappearance of al-Ruwaili is linked to a long-running saga which started in 1989 with the theft by a Thai janitor of US$2 million of jewelry from the Saudi Arabian palace of a prince where he was employed.
The worker was arrested in Thailand soon after the theft, and police returned the jewelry to the Saudi authorities. But some of the pieces – including a priceless “blue diamond” – turned out to be fake, leading to suspicions that senior police and members of Thailand’s powerful elite had kept the loot and ordered a cover-up.
Thai reporters have long speculated that some of the jewels - especially the blue diamond - ended up in the possession of people at the top of Thai social ladder.
Prior to al-Ruwaili's disappearance, four Saudi diplomats based in Bangkok who were attempting to recover the jewelry were murdered between 1989 and 1990 along with members of a Thai jeweler's family involved in the case.
Al-Ruwaili, a close friend of the murdered diplomats, then disappeared during the police investigation into the killings.
The Bangkok Post has quoted the dead businessman's brother in law, Matrouk al-Ruwaili, as saying: "The family has come to the conclusion that he was stopped by the police and taken by the police - which division we don't know - for certain interrogations, perhaps relating to the assassination of the Saudi diplomats."
Reacting to Monday's court ruling, a diplomat at the Royal Saudi Embassy in Bangkok, Abdullah al-Sheaiby, complained that case judges had been mysteriously changed days before the judgment.
“I am quite surprised by the timing of this change of judge. We are not satisfied with this,” he said.
Anek Khamchum, the Thai lawyer of the al-Ruwaili family, also expressed his surprise that the court had now decided to disregard evidence from a key witness.
“All along they have considered that our witness - police Lt. Col. Suvichai - was a valid witness. But at the last moment, they decided that he was not credible,” he said.
Suvichai had testified to the court that his superior Lt. Gen. Somkid Boonthanom had ordered four other officers to kidnap Muhammad al-Ruwaili, kill him and burn his body.
The five accused denied the charges. The prosecutor-general and the al-Ruwaili family are considering appealing the case.
The body of al-Ruwaili has never been found.
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