62 found guilty of trafficking in Thailand

BANGKOK: More needs to be done to ensure that human traffickers are brought to justice and Rohingya migrants are protected, rights groups said on Thursday, after a trial in which 62 people were convicted of crimes including trafficking and murder.

A Bangkok court convicted the 62, including a general, police officers and provincial officials, on Wednesday at the end of Thailand’s biggest ever human-trafficking trial.

The trial began in 2015 after the discovery of more than 30 bodies in shallow graves near the Malaysian border in what authorities said was a jungle camp where traffickers held migrants hostage until relatives paid ransom for their release.

The discovery led to more than 100 arrests. Many of the dead were believed to be Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar, many of whom seek refuge in mostly Muslim Malaysia.

Thailand has not released a full report on the graves or the results of forensic tests. “The trial and convictions was just the first step,” Sunai Phasuk, senior Thailand researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

“The government needs to do more beyond this and continue investigations. It should leave no stone unturned. “The court took more than 12 hours to deliver the verdicts which rights groups said showed the government was serious about the problem.

The convicted included Myanmar nationals. The longest jail term was 94 years, for Soe Naing, widely known as Anwar, a Rohingya man who police said was a key figure behind the jungle camp where dozens died.

Thailand has long been a source, destination and transit country for men, women and children smuggled and trafficked from poorer, neighbouring countries, including Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, to Thailand or further afield, often to work as labourers and sex workers.

Last month, the US State Department left Thailand on a Tier 2 Watchlist, just above the lowest ranking of Tier 3, in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report. The State Department said Thailand did not do enough to tackle human smuggling and trafficking, and did not convict officials “complicit in trafficking crimes”.