11 Thai police officers arrested for alleged gang rape of 14 year old
A children’s foundation is rallying for justice after a 14 year old girl was allegedly gang-raped by 15 men. Eleven of the men are reported to be serving Thai police officers and the teenage girl was supposedly raped on multiple occasions in Leoi province in northeast Thailand over a two-year period.
Today, officials from the Children, Youth and Families Foundation submitted a letter to Justice Minister Somsak Thepsutin requesting that justice be served for a 14 year old gang rape victim, reports KhaoSod and DailyNews.
Between March 2021 to January 2023, a teenage girl was allegedly gang-raped on numerous occasions by 15 men. At least 11 are Royal Thai Police officers.
KhaoSod reports that the victim was, at one stage, pregnant as a result of the gang rape.
Officers at Chiang Klom Police Station arrested 11 of the suspects – all police officers – five of which were released on bail and six of whom were denied bail. Four more suspects are believed to be involved but are yet to be identified. It’s not clear when the arrests took place.
Advisor to the foundation Thicha Nanakhon said that a police officer holding the position of Police Lieutenant led the gang rape with at least 10 of his subordinates.
Thicha said the victim fled the province but was still being harassed by the gang of police officers.
Relatives are now pressuring the authorities to expedite the case because they do not feel safe with most of the suspects released.
The victim’s family consists only of her, her mother and her grandmother, who is blind and disabled. The family is at risk, the foundation said.
The children’s foundation made three requests to the Ministry of Justice while the case continues…
- Request for the victim’s mother and grandmother to enter the witness protection process to ensure their safety.
- Request permission for the Children, Youth and Family Foundation to join the victim empowerment process to aid the justice process.
- Request for the Ministry of Justice – especially the Department of Rights, Liberties and Protection – to use this case as a case study to find the strengths and weaknesses in the ministry’s justice process to make it better and more efficient.
The foundation did not comment on the victim’s current wellbeing after being subject to such sickening, heinous crimes for so long at the hands of the very people responsible for the public’s safety.
Thicha said the case was very similar to the case of a 14 year old being gang raped in Phang Nga province in 2016 with more than 40 suspects identified. The men filmed the rape and used the footage to blackmail the child into further coerced sex.
Two years later, 11 suspects were found guilty of gang-raping the teenager. Seven were sentenced to life, two were sentenced to 15 years, another to 45 years and another to 20 years and four months for their unthinkable crimes.
In 2020, a pregnant 13 year old girl who was gang raped by six men committed suicide by jumping off a building in Bangkok.
