Thu, May 27, 2010 page5

• ‘Red Shirt’ Briton facing death sentence

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  A Briton arrested in Thailand faces years in jail, or even a death sentence, for allegedly urging “Red Shirt” rioters to burn down a shopping center.

  Jeff Savage, a 48-year-old married man, originally from Tonbridge, England, has been accused by the Thai prime minister of being a long-time member of the anti-government Red Shirt movement and a key agitator in the riots that saw swaths of the capital burn last week.

  In his first prison interview since being arrested on Sunday, Savage, who has lived in Thailand for nine years, told the Guardian he was being fitted up for crimes he did not commit. He denied he was involved in burning down the Central World shopping center in the heart of Bangkok.

  “I am being stitched up, being fitted up. I thought it was just for overstaying my visa, but now this is serious,” Savage said from a Bangkok remand prison. “They are trying to pin a whole lot of stuff on me and a few others ... that we had nothing to do with. We are being made scapegoats.”

  In a video shot during the chaotic final days of the Red Shirts’ protest, now circulating on YouTube, Savage is seen dressed in a bandanna and carrying a stick, exhorting protesters to set fire to the shopping center, in the middle of the Red Shirts’ protest site.

  “We’re gonna smash the fucking Central [World] plaza to shit. We’re gonna steal everything out of it and burn the fucker down. Trust me, get pictures of that fucker. We’re gonna loot everything, gold, watches, everything and then we’re gonna burn it to the ground,” he says in the video, shot days before the shopping center was torched on Wednesday last week.

  As Thai army soldiers marched on the Red Shirts’ central Bangkok demonstration site, fleeing protesters rioted, setting fire to government and commercial buildings, and looting shops.

  Central World was the most serious fire. The seven-story shopping center was gutted and will be demolished. It remains a smoldering wreck in the middle of a city now slowly emerging from the bloodshed of last week.

  A government spokesman, Panitan Wattanayagorn, said a Western man was seen inside Central World as the flames began to take hold.

  “A white Westerner was involved in the arson attack on Central World, convincing them to set fire to it,” he said.

  Savage conceded he was in the video.

  “I’ll cut through the crap, it was definitely me. I said that,” he said on Tuesday. “I was under stress when I said those things. I was emotional, I was wound up because I’d been under sniper fire. I said it using old British sarcasm, I was being the caricature of the British soccer hooligan.”

  He said he was not in the vicinity when the fire began.

  “I had nothing to do with Central World burning down,” he said. “Nothing at all. I swear and I can prove it.”

  Savage has admitted to being involved in earlier Red Shirt demonstrations, including riots in Pattaya in April last year, when protesters stormed the hotel hosting the ASEAN leaders’ meeting, causing the conference to be abandoned. He was at state-owned TV station Channel 3 when it was set on fire on Wednesday last week, though he says he played no part in burning the building.

  Savage was arrested by immigration police at the weekend for overstaying his visa, but released. He was rearrested by Royal Thai Police on Sunday afternoon.

  The Thai government has said Savage would be charged with violating the state of emergency decree, an offense that carries a two-year prison sentence, but Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Tuesday that he was confident Savage was a long-term member of the Red Shirts and further charges against him would be investigated.

  “In the case of the Briton, he’s involved with the [Red Shirt] movement in Pattaya,” he said. “In-depth investigations will be carried out to find out whether he had any other role.”

  The head of Thailand’s Department of Special Investigations (DSI) has warned that those found guilty of looting or arson in the final hours of the Red Shirts’ two-month rally could face the death penalty.

  “There are groups of people who are burning state offices and public places,” Tharit Pengdit said after the troop takeover of the protest site.

  “The DSI would like to warn these people that they could face a death sentence,” he said.
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