A Thai court began handing down guilty verdicts Wednesday at the culmination of the country’s largest ever human trafficking trial, Reuters reports.
Bangkok’s Criminal Court Division for Human Trafficking had been trying 103 suspects — including 20 government officials and a Thai army general — accused of trafficking stateless Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshi nationals across the Thai-Malaysia border.
Thai authorities began making arrests in 2015 after dozens of trafficking victims were found buried in a mass grave in a jungle in the country’s south. Some of the suspects in the case face life imprisonment for human trafficking, holding people for ransom, murder, and other crimes.
Only one of 22 defendants whose cases concluded in a morning session was found not guilty, according to Reuters. More guilty verdicts are expected to follow.
Southeast Asia-based non-profit Fortify Rights called the trial an “unprecedented effort by Thai authorities to hold perpetrators of human trafficking accountable” in a press release Tuesday, but noted that the proceedings were beset by threats against witnesses, interpreters and police investigators.
Source: Thailand: Guilty Verdicts in Landmark Trafficking Trial | Time.com
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