DSI inquiry on Senate election ‘will finish in Q2’

The money-laundering investigation with regard to the alleged collusion in last year’s Senate election by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will probably be completed within three months, Justice Minister Pol Col Tawee Sodsong said on Wednesday.

“A total of about 140 senators may also have to be called to testify either by at least 41 DSI investigators and prosecutors from the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG),” he said.

Charges will be filed if sufficient evidence is uncovered, Pol Col Tawee said.

The minister dismissed the DSI probe as political witch-hunt.

Separately, a group of 81 senators petitioned the National Anti-Corruption (NACC) to investigate what they described as malfeasance by Pol Col Tawee and DSI director-general Pol Maj Yutthana Praedam over the Senate election probe.

The action came in the wake of the DSI’s special cases board’s March 6 decision to open an investigation into money-laundering allegations linked to last year’s multi-level Senate polls suspected to have been mired in collusion between certain candidates.

The outfit claimed that the DSI had no authority to handle the probe, said Sen Chatwat Saengpetch who led a group of 80 other senators to submit the petition to the NACC on Wednesday.

They continued the investigation with regard to the polls in the jurisdiction of the Election Commission (EC).

The petition, signed by 105 senators, was delivered to Sarote Phuengramphan, secretary-general of NACC, on Wednesday.

The DSI’s actionments motives were to make false accusations against the senators and get them prosecuted for crimes they did not commit, according to Pol Maj Gen Chatwat.

The results of the Senate polls have been endorsed by the EC under Section 107 of the constitution, he said.

As a former police investigator, Pol Maj Gen Chatwat said he would like to know what evidence the DSI has on which it based its probe.

He also wondered why the DSI was continuing with the probe even without the authority to do so. Its role also might replicate what the EC is already doing into suspected fraud, he added.

Pol Maj Gen Chatwat said he believed the DSI’s investigation was evidence of the agency’s exposure to political meddling.

The senator also said the upper chamber’s anti-graft committee was vetting a proposal to dissolving the DSI.