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Bound, beaten body of human trafficker found after arrest by Thai border police

HURFOM/IMNA: The body of a 35-year-old Mon man was found Saturday after Thai Border Patrol Police arrested him on Friday as he attempted to traffic undocumented workers into Thailand. His neck was broken, his hands bound and his body bore the marks of a beating, say sources among the search party who found him.

At 3 pm on March 6th a group of BPP officers based out of Wae Ka Dee village in Kanchanaburi province met Nai Lon and a group of 16 Burmese workers as they attempted to sneak into Burma. According to one of the workers in the party, the group was in Thailand about 3 hours walk from the Thai-Burmese border.

“While we were walking on the mountain we came face to face with Thai soldiers wearing black uniforms,” the worker told IMNA by phone. “We were surrounded and then they arrested Nai Lon, who was leading us into Thailand. They just arrested him and we all ran back Halocknee.” Halocknee is a resettlement site in Mon State for people displaced by conflict and human rights abuses.

According to a source who spoke with the New Mon State Party (NMSP) liaison office in Sangkhlaburi, the BPP notified the NMSP of the arrest. The NMSP and BPP frequently cooperate on drug and human trafficking interdiction efforts. Halockhnee and the territory around it along the border has officially been administered by the NMSP since the party agreed to a ceasefire with Burma’s junta in 1995.

Residents of Halockhnee, meanwhile, became worried when Nai Lon did not return to his home that night. The next morning, a group of villagers, the village headmen and a medic formed a search party.

According to a medic in the party, when they found Nai Lon his neck and ribs were broken and his body was covered in bruises. “His body was hit by hard by a thing like a stick or the butt of a rifle. There were also marks like from a soldier’s boot,” the medic explained to IMNA.

“Nai Lon hand’s were tied with a bamboo pole,” said another villager in the search party. “His body was on the ground. He was all black and full of wounds.”

Villagers then notified the NMSP liaison office, said the source that spoke with the NMSP. The NMSP, in turn, notified the BPP in Waekadee. According to the outside source, the Waekadee BPP denied killing Nai Lon, maintaining that he was injured during an attempted flight. IMNA could not independently confirm the information provided by the source that spoke with the NMSP.

*This story was a joint HURFOM-Independent Mon News Agency Effort.

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