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Published on September 29, 2007

Suchart Wonganantachai and Dussadee Arayawut stated that they had been transferred out of the DSI because they had filed an internal complaint that DSI director-general Sunai Manomai-udom and his deputy Phornchai Assawawatthanaphorn lacked basic DSI qualifications and training as criminal detectives.

Suchart and Dussadee are former police officers holding the rank of colonel, while Sunai and Phornchai are Supreme Court and Central Bankruptcy Court judges respectively.

Suchart said the qualifications were vital to the DSI leadership and that their transfer by Sunai and Phornchai was against DSI rules.

"All previous directives [issued by both Sunai and Phornchai] and those issued in the future could be legally void," he added.

Suchart was a director of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs and International Crimes, while Dussadee was a director of Technology and Cyber-Crime before the annual transfer order, which takes effect on Monday.

They have been transferred to the Office of Justice Affairs and Rights and Liberties Protection Department respectively.

Suchart said he had been assigned to a new job he was "not good at" and that the transfer moving him and Dussadee to other departments was unfair and a demotion.

Asked whether the transfers were an effort to sow dissent among ex-police officers serving in the DSI to eventually marginalise them, Suchart said that if the image of the police was still bad within the DSI, then all former police officers should be transferred out of it.

Sunai dismissed speculation that the transfers were aimed at marginalising former police officers serving with the DSI and said they were intended to improve the DSI's internal management.

Sunai said he believed his appointment as DSI chief after the September 19 coup last year had been lawful.

The Nation