Bangkok – A Thai court has reduced the number of witnesses for the long -term trial of two Uighur men incarcerated for a decade after the reprisals of a popular Bangkok sanctuary with Chinese visitors.
Adem Karadag and Yusufu Mieraili, both handcuffed and chained, appeared Thursday before a criminal court in Bangkok for a new indictment aimed at accelerating the procedure in the politically sensitive case.
“I still have hope for freedom,” Karadag told Radio Free Asia through an audience interpreter. “I want to go anywhere but not be returned to China like the others.”
The two men smiled and hugged their Thai lawyers and its Uighur interpreter.
“I did the exercise. I can eat well,” said Mieraili in Thai.
The two men denied that they sparked the Eras sanctuary bomb during the August 17, 2015 attack, apparent reprisals for the repatriation of Thailand of dozens of Uighur migrants to China, where they risk a high risk of persecution.
Twenty people died in the bombing of the Hindu sanctuary in downtown Bangkok and more than 120 injured.
The trial in Langui due to the change of jurisdiction between civil and military courts in the midst of regime changes in Thailand. The lack of interpreters in the qualified courtroom has also led to delays.
Thursday, the criminal court reduced the number of witnesses to prosecution to 20 to shorten the trial. He set 11 judicial dates from September to December. The two are accused of first degree murder and could be executed in difficulty if they are guilty.
The police arrested Karadag and Mieraili shortly after the bombing on the basis of video surveillance images, but did not find dozens of other alleged authors.
The trial is expected to end next year, said CHUCHART GUNPAI, lawyer for defendants.
Uighur exodus through Southeast Asia
Uighurs are Turkish Muslims who live mainly in the Xinjiang region in China but are also distributed through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. They fled China in large numbers to escape what they describe as a persecution and repression by the Chinese authorities – of the allegations that Beijing denies.
Before the bombing, nearly 400 Uighurs who fled China were arrested in Thailand in 2014, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry. Le Flé Ouïghours hoped for resettlement in Türkiye via Malaysia, the good defenders and other lawyers said. Others have probably slipped through the Thai-Malais border without detection by the authorities.
In June 2015, Thailand allowed 172 Uighur women and children to leave for Turkey, but two weeks later, it seemed to bow to Beijing pressure and put 109 Uighur men, blindfolded, on a plane back in China, causing an international conviction.
The Thai Foreign Ministry said that at that time, the men “had been checked as Chinese and that proof of their involvement in criminal activities had been sent by the government of China.”
The decision aroused the condemnation of the Uighur World Congress, an exiled Uighur group, which said that 25 Uighurs were killed by residing in forced expulsion. Thailand has denied any death.
“If Thailand had followed the principle of not sending people in danger, these misadventures could have been avoided,” the director of the Popular Autonomization Foundation, who helped Uighurs, told RFA.
Poor conditions
Following the deportations and arrests of Karadag and Mieraili in 2015, more than 50 Uïghours remained in Thai immigration prison until the beginning of this year.
Some have said they were denied visiting the right visits and were kept in small non -hygienic cells without adequate medical care. Thai officials said three detainees died during their imprisonment.
Forty imprisoned Uighurs were expelled to China in night death on February 27.
Three other Uighur men, who held Kyrgyzstan passports, were resettled in Canada.
Five Uighurs continue to purge Jailbreaking sentences, according to Chalida, which fears that they are also expelled to China after their release in the next two years.
Published by Stephen Wright and Tajun Kang.