The Justice Ministry's Central Institute of Forensic Science will today announce whether the remains found in an oil drum were those of missing Muslim rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, its acting director Khunying Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand said yesterday.

 Somchai was abducted two years ago after a verbal clash with police.

A spokesman for Department of Special Investigation (DSI) director Piyawat Kingket said the agency would send a large team of investigators, including underwater archaeologists, to the scene.

DSI officers on Friday discovered the top of an oil drum with fat stains on it in the Mae Klong River, Ratchaburi province, near where Somchai went missing two years ago.

The section of the river where the drum top was found has been cordoned off and will be probed by scuba divers for the drum and other remains on Tuesday.

Somchai disappeared when he was representing three men accused of being southern militants. The three, who Somchai claimed had been tortured

by police, were later found innocent.

Of the five policemen accused of abducting Somchai only one was found guilty and sentenced to a few years in jail.

The fact that Somchai's body was never found has made it impossible to charge the suspects with murder.

Meanwhile Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasathidya yesterday lashed out at the media, accusing members of the press of insulting the government by asking questions about political interference in the ongoing investigation of the Somchai case.

A furious Chidchai said the government had been straightforward with the public about the investigation.

The case became a major embarrassment for the government after local and international rights bodies, as well as the UN and the US, expressed concern over it.