Chainarong Anukul submitted related documents supporting his compensation claim with the ministry’s deputy permanent secretary Tawatchai Thaikyo at the Government Complex on Bangkok’s Chaeng Wattana Road.

On August 4 the Criminal Court ruled that Tawatchai’s death while in Department of Special Investigation (DSI) custody last year was caused by unidentified person[s] and was not the result of suicide, as the DSI had claimed.

The ruling paved the way for a police investigation into what was deemed as a death caused by a ruptured liver and internal bleeding as a result of blunt-force trauma.

His death was deemed to have resulted from either deliberate or unintentional actions.

Tawatchai, 66, was accused of malfeasance in violation of section 157 of the Criminal Code over his alleged involvement in the issuance of land ownership documents in Phuket and Phang Nga. He was found hanging in a DSI detention cell on August 30 last year and was pronounced dead at Mongkut Wattana Hospital.

The autopsy found that he had died of a ruptured liver and internal bleeding, contradicting the DSI’s claimed that he committed suicide by hanging himself with a pair of socks.