We’ve all seen the films. The suspect is being interrogated in a room with no windows, but maybe a one-way mirror. One table with chairs on either side and some form of recording device. The police sit on one side, the accused and perhaps a lawyer on the other. And the dialogue ensues.
There we can follow the cut-and-thrust, the clever ploys, the unwitting give-away. One side asks the questions. The other side tries not to answer.
It’s not like that in real Thai life.
When a case walks into a Thai police station, there’s first some shifty sideways glances among the officers on duty. Who’s going to get lumbered with this one?
Eventually one of them gives in, looks up and asks what the problem is. And from that moment on there’s no dialogue. It’s a free-for-all, with the alleged perpetrator, the victim if there is one, witnesses, wives, camp-followers, plus any other officer who’s now decided to take an interest, all joining in, talking at once, and guaranteeing confusion for one and all.
And this is all done in public. There are times when a contentious legal or moral point emerges from the chaos. And random bystanders, people who have come in to pay a traffic fine, or report a lost bank book, decide that their opinion, delivered fortissimo to no one in particular, will be a valuable addition to the debate.
From this maelstrom, the police officer in charge will somehow form an opinion about who is responsible for what. This normally sets off a second cacophony of claim and counter-claim. If a change of shift should now occur, a new police officer will take over, and the shambles starts all over again, the only difference being that the police decision is unlikely to remain the same.
Even when formal charges are being laid and statements are taken in some inside cubicle, the questions being asked by the police (this time dictated by policies and procedures) drift into unreality. Liberian ice-dealers won’t even tell you the time of day truthfully. What earthly use is it to ask them for the names of their fathers and mothers, information that cannot be verified, will almost certainly be mis-spelled in the report, and will never be used in any prosecution?
Not that interrogation techniques seem much better in the far more supervised society of Lao PDR.
When Sombath Somphone went missing, last seen being escorted out of a police checkpoint into a vehicle with flashing lights, the police investigators sprang into action and requested Ng Shui Meng, the wife of the abductee, to appear for questioning. After waiting a month.
During this month, an official script had been drafted, suggesting that the abduction was the result of a personal or business dispute (which presumably is why it happened on police premises).
Now intelligent readers who have watched the YouTube video of the abduction may have thought up a few questions of their own, like:
What are the names, ranks and positions of the officers who stopped Sombath’s vehicle? Did these officers see or recognize the persons who escorted Sombath out of the checkpoint? Did they or anyone else remove the keys to Sombath’s vehicle? How did the mystery man on the motorcycle get hold of these keys enabling him to drive this vehicle away (in no great hurry)? Did they recognize this mystery man? How and by whom was he summoned to the checkpoint? Did he come back for his motorcycle?
If Sombath was abducted for personal or business reasons, as the various functionaries of the Lao state insist on parroting, then their police officers were witnesses to a crime. What have they done to investigate this? Why did they fail to inform the family or associates of Sombath that he had been abducted?
And so on and so on.
But none of these questions seem to have occurred to the Lao police.
Instead the lowest ranking officer in the station asked his wife just 3 questions: When did you get married? How did you meet? Where do you live and do you have children? Thank you, goodbye, and don’t call us, we won’t be calling you.
Even with the scanty resources of the Lao state, which their officials have repeatedly offered as an excuse for their inaction, the answers to these questions (possibly excepting the second) could have been found from records that the state already holds.
It is still very early in the year, but perhaps I could here nominate Ng Shui Meng for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing her admirable restraint in not promptly clocking one on this willing and willful idiot of a policeman.