The sudden reversal of the findings of the Department of Special Investigation in the killing of Reuters photographer Hiroyuki Muramoto while he was covering the violence on April 10 last year should not really come as a surprise. In fact it follows a pattern of unexpected fresh evidence, often discovered long after the event, which overturns all previous assumptions about the facts of a case.

The original finding of the DSI was the result of months of careful investigation, or so we have been told, under extremely polite but extremely persistent prodding from the Japanese Embassy. This investigation concluded that the cameraman was probably shot by military personnel at the Kok Wua intersection during the failed attempt to clear red shirt protestors from their encampment by Pan Fa bridge.

This preliminary finding was based on reports by eye-witnesses, including one police officer standing close to Muramoto when he was shot, the autopsy report and examination of the scene.

Unfortunately, during the almost 11 months since the killing, the DSI failed to seek the expert testimony of their own advisor, Pol Lt Gen Amporn Charuchinda, a former chief of the Forensic Science Division. In a matter of a few minutes, he was able to establish, on the basis of photographs alone, that the pattern of wounds corresponded to a bullet with a calibre larger than 7 mm. The M16, which, according to military sources, was carried by troops at the scene, uses a 5.56 mm round.

The AK47 uses 7.62mm bullets and could have inflicted the wounds. But although the army has thousands of AK47s, none had been issued to troops in this incident. The inescapable conclusion is that the M16-touting soldiers were not responsible for the killing of Muramoto, which naturally leads to the implication that it was the work of Some Other Party.

Further investigation will doubtless reveal the identity of those guilty.

It has not been thought necessary to ask why a retired forensic expert had to be brought in. Was the evidence not examined by current experts? If it was, why did they fail to reach the same conclusion as ex-expert Pol Lt Gen Amporn? And if he is an advisor to the DSI and his specialty is forensic science, why was he never asked before now?

Nor should it be asked why this evidence was re-examined only after the preliminary DSI report was written and submitted to the Metropolitan Police Bureau. And after a visit to the DSI by Army Chief of Staff Gen Dapong Rattanasuwan, who was doubtless there to discuss completely unrelated but important issues. Such as the weather, perhaps.

Nor is it necessary to ask whether there are other weapons in the Royal Thai Army arsenal with a calibre of more than 7 mm, or if such weapons were in use at the scene of the shooting.

And of course it would be quite improper to wonder if a more open and transparent investigation process would reduce the possibility of faulty conclusions that have to be corrected later and which, in malicious minds, might give rise to suspicions of improper influence.

Prachatai has learned that the DSI has been quietly gathering a group of former specialists to review some of the high-profile cases that it has taken on over the years, but never been able to solve.

The leaders of the PAD continue to be threatened with arrest, at some indefinite time in the future, on charges of terrorism related to their takeover of Bangkok’s international airports in 2008. They have protested that they did not, in fact, close the airports; this was the responsibility of airport officials who over-reacted to the presence of thousands of protestors blocking the passenger halls and access roads.

New evidence discovered by a former government interpreter has unearthed a directive from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) which, according to her translation, categorically instructs airport authorities to have planes take off empty when civil unrest blocks passenger access to departure terminals. The existence of this directive appears to exonerate the PAD leadership from any charge, making the blocking of an airport a perfectly normal, non-criminal action. .

The fact that no one else has ever seen such a directive is merely a tribute to the thoroughness of this interpreter’s research and the fact that she is married to a high-ranking military officer is completely by-the-by.

And a DSI jewelry and gems expert has examined press photographs of the Saudi gems stolen in 1989, a crime which is thought to be related to the murders of 3 Saudi diplomats, the disappearance of a Saudi businessman and a decades-old ban on Thai labour recruitment for the lucrative Saudi market.

By measuring the ‘numinous aura valence’ emanating from the photographs, the expert has determined that the gems were fakes all along. Claims that the Thai police replaced the stones with worthless substitutes before returning them to Saudi Arabia are therefore groundless. The disappearance of the famous ‘blue diamond’ also becomes somewhat moot, since it has now been proved to be nothing more than a large lump of blue glass, no matter whose neck it is adorning.