Saturday, December 8th, 2012

Bangkok

Opinion & Analysis by Burin Kantabutra

I have no problem with the DSI charging Abhisit Vejjajiva and Suthep Thaugsuban for authorising the killing of anti-government protesters during the 2010 unrest, especially since it filed 213 legal cases against the red shirts and arrested and prosecuted 295 UDD members. No one is above the law.

But I am concerned that Section 70 of our Criminal Code states that those who act on the orders of their commanders are protected from prosecution. That’s the so-called Nuremburg Defence, used by the Nazis in their war crimes trials to justify, among other things, the murder of millions of Jews. As Martin Luther King, Jr noted, ”We should never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal’.”

Or, as Admiral Mike Mull