My first rude awakening of this year came very early.

 

I had no sooner nodded off after the last rude awakening of 2008 (the fireworks, the ship’s horns blaring from the port, and all the other noisy New Year palaver), when a smell of burning wafted over the house.

 

This is not something to roll over and sleep through.  Not when the house in question is made of wood. 

 

But some concentrated sniffing, and the sound of sirens from the main road, reassured me that what I could smell wasn’t the imminent destruction of my home.  Besides, I was now convinced the stench was from burning plastic.

 

I never thought of burning flesh.

 

It was the Santika blaze that had disturbed my first slumbers of the year.

 

And the stench has steadily got worse.

 

Santika operated without the necessary permits, for which it was cited numerous times until the citations stopped in November 2006 after Pol Col Prayon Lasuea bought shares in the company that owned Santika.  Pol Col Prayon is deputy commander of the Crime Suppression Division, and my, wasn’t he successful in suppressing these crimes?

 

Santika had been repeatedly caught selling alcohol to minors and after hours, another crime that was successfully suppressed by the arrival of Pol Col Prayon.

 

Ministry of Justice investigators (but not the police) found traces of cocaine and heroin in the offices and musician’s dressing room.

 

The Anti-Money Laundering Office discovered (but only after the fire) and is now investigating a 20 million baht transfer into the Santika bank account that cannot be explained.

 

The Managing Director of the company that owned Santika was apparently the guy that organized the parking, who has since gone AWOL.  Versatile feller.

 

The construction licence for the Santika carried forged signatures for the engineer and architect, and the architect had already complained to police about this problem in 35 other cases.

 

Santika never paid building or sign taxes to Wattana District or income tax to the Revenue Department.

 

Santika was officially listed as a private residence (and how many private residences do you know who have been charged with selling booze after hours?) and so was never subject to proper safety inspections.

 

Santika never paid excise tax because the authorities were told there was no dancing or alcohol on the premises (apart from the stuff they had been illegally peddling to minors, one assumes) and their one inspection in 5 years somehow did not convince them otherwise.

 

But the biggest finger is being pointed in the face of the National Police Office, who have charged the lead singer of the band performing at the time with lighting the fireworks that started the inferno.  This charge is based on eye-witness testimony obtained by the police (although the same police have somehow not got round to taking statements from many who want to give evidence – marvellous how they homed in on the people who happened to have the crucial information).

 

That was until the Ministry of Justice played video footage of the incident which shows nothing of the sort.

 

I am afraid that this exposes the failings of normal police investigation procedures in Thailand.

 

When you read the next report of a serious crime in the newspapers, you are likely to find at the end of the report speculation by high-ranking officers about the motive for the crime.  Motive seems to be where they start.  Before evidence has been collected and analyzed, they start fingering suspects. 

 

Because once they have their suspects, the compilation of evidence becomes much simpler.  They don’t need to spend tedious hours combing through CCTV footage or patiently sifting through files.  No, if you’ve already got your man, you need just one of two things – an eye witness or a confession.

 

Eye witnesses seem easy to persuade.  Just who are the eye witnesses from the Santika who saw the Burn singer doing something that is invisible to the camera?  And as for confessions, well, of course, some recalcitrant suspects may need a bit of persuading and your plastic bags and electrodes might come in handy.  And if the public prosecutor is still sceptical, well, material evidence can always be produced – the gun conveniently discovered next to the corpse, the pills found in the pocket.

 

But either way, we get a speedy and efficient conclusion to the investigation, the ranking officer in the case gets his pic in the papers, and society can walk free, knowing that someone has been banged up for the crime.

 

But perhaps not the criminal.

 

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire). And if you believe any of those stories, you might believe his columns.