The circumstance will be remembered surrounding the brutal slaying of Phra Supoj Suwajo, the activist monk of the Buddhadasa Study Group and the abbot of the Suan Metta Dhamma Meditation Centre, Ban Huai Ngu, Sansai Subdistrict, Fang District, Chiang Mai Province, who was killed on 17 June 2005. This case has aroused continuing public interest.

The case reverberated in Buddhist circles because it was believed that Phra Supoj was continuing the work of Buddhadasa, who was respected throughout the country. The murder was a heinous act, using a sharp object of an unknown type or size, by an unknown number of assailants. There were more than 20 serious wounds to the head, front, hands, arms ad trunk, causing death. The killing occurred 300 metres from the monks' quarters at Suan Metta Dhamma.

This case is another example of conservationists and Buddhist teachers who have sacrificed to protect natural resources in he communities where they live, against the power of local influential groups who, hand-in-hand with state officials, use brute force to destroy the lives of villagers who stand in the way of their profits, so that they can continue to scoop up the resources o the community

Many people see this case only as an ordinary murder case, Whether a layman or a priest, there is the random chance of becoming a victim in dark times like the present. But if the details of the case looked at carefully, we will see the links behind the problem from a broader perspective. This is not just the murder of a monk in Fang District; it is not just the murder of a monk in Chiang Mai; and it is not just the murder of a monk in Thailand. The problem is many times bigger than that.

This can be said to be the problem of global competition for resources among capitalists-administrators in order to obtain the highest benefit for themselves.

Sate policy and the system of justice of Thailand are continuously crippled, to the point where Thai society is beginning to wonder who in the end can people put their faith in.

Prcently, Prachatai interviewed Phra Kittisak Kittisophano, chair of the Metta Dhamma Foundation, to ask about progress in the Phra Supoj Suwajo case. His answers showed clearly that this case is a memorial to the failure of the Thai system of justice.

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Can you please tell us of the progress in the Phra Supoj Suwajo case?

This January 2008 is the 31^st month since the loss of Phra Supoj Suwajo. It's like every time we talk, it is about the worry of the relatives of the deceased that state officials have not been able to bring the perpetrators to justice. Right now, whoever killed Phra Supoj is walking about freely. There has been no arrest warrant and no clear identification of anyone who gave the orders, or of anyone at all. At present, the state agencies, the police, the Department of Special Investigation, or the other security organizations who have declared their interest, are not sure who is connected to this case.

Various hypotheses of the parents and relatives believe that the death of Phra Supoj was the action of those who did not agree with Phra Supoj and of influential people. But in the end, the criminal goes free and the state agencies have given up on the problem and don't offer any help.

And now there are moves to cancel the witness protection programme, and to cancel the investigation, both the public one and the one behind closed doors. In sum, the reality is that the family of Phra Supoj have heard of no progress for half a year now. It's another historical case which reflects the clear failure of the investigation and of the Thai system of justice.

Why has witness protection been suddenly cancelled like this?

Since September last year, the end of the budget year, it was cancelled for unknown reasons. There were no reasons. Some say that the Royal Thai Police gave an order to cancel witness protection in this case. Then the Department of Special Investigation said that if the police do not provide protection, it will contact the Third Army. Col. Piyawat Kingket, Commander of the Special Crime Office of the Department of Special Investigation, said this, bit has since gone silent. There has been no contact.

The Office of Witness Protection of the Ministry of Justice has been in contact and asked if there is still protection or not. But when they were told that the police officers had withdrawn, they said that the issue of witness protection would later come under the DSI. The various expenses came from the DSI.

Now that there is no witness protection, have there been any threats?

Now that there is no witness protection, there are threats all the time and violence is increasing. The latest incident was gunshots. A stranger came into the Meditation Centre at night. We told the DSI but nothing happened. Now there are police officers from Fang Police Station stationed at Suan Metta Dhamma Meditation Centre from Monday to Wednesday in the mornings until noon. Then they go back. This is like a symbol, or talking about safety. But it does not inspire confidence. But it s loving-kindness, it is the generosity of the Commander of Fang Police Station who still sends police officers here. And it's the same agency that's ends them. But if you ask whether it's effective in protecting people, that's hard to answer.

As regards progress in the case, do you see any chance of movement?

The opportunity for gathering testimony from witnesses and evidence, I we speak knowledgeably, is something that is time-sensitive. If a long time passes, memories fade, materials degrade with time. The chances of finding the perpetrators are reduced. It's even worse if you follow the trail of someone and want to punish him by law, because there are no solid witnesses, no good evidence, nothing in the case. The agencies that by law are responsible are using time to destroy justice, to destroy the truth, to wear people down so that they give up. These agencies have to do their job, to move forward. Time is making this case a sorry affair, especially because it is the murder of a monk in broad daylight in a public place. But the power of the state, with all its resources and personnel, has not been able to ensure justice. So it really is a memorial to failure.

Does it seem as though the case is scarcely given any importance by all the government agencies?

Yes. You can see that no matter who is in charge at the time, whether it is Pol Lt Col Thaksin Shinawatra or Gen Surayud Chulanont under the CNS, or under the 2007 Constitution, this case has limited importance. When we go to see the Minister of Justice, we are told that this case has to wait because there are more important cases they have to deal with first. If you ask them what these are, they say, for example, corruption in the Thaksin government, Suvarnabhumi Airport, the concealment and movement of Thaksin's money. This reflects a picture that when someone at the level of the Minister of Justice, who has supreme authority over the DSI, thinks this way, people on the ground can't do much. They can only do what is under their responsibility. There are more important cases that take precedence.

Was it a mistake to transfer the case the DSI?

You can conclude that it was a mistake for us to have the DSI take over this case. Just like the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit, or the murder of Charoen Wat-Aksorn. None of these cases has made any progress. It is a failure of the agencies and the personnel working on these cases.

These agencies have a structure that is defective. This results in internal conflict, including what is in the news about their many problems. Officials who have been seconded from the police or military, officials in different sections who work in DSI, are in conflict with each other and can't solve the problem. At the same time, the DSI has gone back to being used politically as a way of hampering the opposition. This also shows there is no efficiency in their work. You can say it is a failure, a waste if the people's tax money.

Or is it that this case has been a failure because the original investigation methods were faulty?

Yes. The Thai system of justice under Thai law o a matter of collecting evidence to prove what happened according to the charge. If the original procedures by the police who build the case are defective, the whole process collapses like a line of dominoes. So people with influence, who know the system of justice, will use loopholes. It's the same in the case of Somchai's murder, which can't be proven, since it is only a missing person case. The case of Phra Supoj was the same from the start. Some lawyers raised suspicions that it was case where the suspects could not be identified because no one saw what happened, there were no eye witnesses.

We can see that if there is no solution to this, the system of justice will fail from the outset. It fails because the people who collect evidence, the people who do the initial investigation, intend to go off course. They make false hypotheses. The judge cannot provide justice, because the judge is the person who considers the case as presented by the officials who collected the original evidence. If it is like this, then it's like what the villagers say, the rich don't go to jail. It's only stupid people and poor people who go to jail.

So we cannot expect that there will be any big guy who gave the orders, who manipulated a web of misery through illegal acts and evil depravity. There is no way to be confident that he will be brought to justice, not to mention anything more elevated than that, such as that these people with influence in the patron-client system are connected to politics and economics, are connected to the community culture. In the end, the mechanisms of the state cannot put this right. It's like the state pushes officials to kowtow to influential people to ask for proper justice.

The case of Phra Supoj is not a matter of Phra Supoj alone, or of his family, or of the network of people's organizations. But the case of Phra Supoj is a picture of the entire system of justice. Those who have the power of the state in their hands cannot see the overall picture of the connecting factors. There is no way to solve this problem. There is no way at all of improving the system of justice.

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