The aftermath of a fake bomb detector
“I was playing football at school when someone shot at soldiers who were nearby. They came to us looking for the shooter. We had to stand in line. They walked by with the GT200. It pointed to me… and they took me away.'
Hassan was held captive for 29 days. He is one of more than four hundred people arrested and imprisoned in the South on the basis of the controversial bomb detector, some of them for up to two years. They were brought in because a bomb detector, which experts describe as nothing more than a radio antenna on a worthless piece of plastic, pointed them out.
After years of selling the device, the manufacturer was arrested in England in July on charges of fraud. According to him, the toy was able to detect minute traces of explosives, gunpowder and even drugs, hundreds of meters away. A sensor card in the handle would deflect the antenna in the direction of the explosives. The device has no batteries, but would run on the user's static electricity.
The authorities refused to listen
A government trial found that the device worked a quarter of the time, a success rate experts attribute to chance. "Tossing a coin is more accurate," said Angkhana Neelapaijit of the Justice for Peace Foundation. “People in the South knew it was fake from the first time it was used in 2007. But the Thai authorities refused to listen.'
The Thai army, which bought GT20 detectors for $200 million, still believes in the effectiveness of the divining rod. It also refuses to apologize to all those innocently imprisoned. "We found real evidence—guns, weapons, grenades—that's why we arrested them," said Colonel Pramote Promin, spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command. Residents in Yala and Pattani say the device is no longer used in mass arrests, but cars and roadsides are still checked with it.
Victims are not served justice
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI), which has been investigating the case, is considering taking legal action against manufacturer Global Technical and the Thai distributors. But whether the DSI will be able to expose the 'powerful people' behind the purchase seems highly unlikely.
And as long as the authorities refuse to plead guilty, no justice will be done to the victims, says the lawyer of Hassan and another student who was innocently detained for 2 years. 'These people have never heard anyone say: I'm sorry we took your freedom away. Surely that is a matter of human dignity.'
(Source: Bangkok Post, Spectrum, September 16, 2012)
Amazing, right! This device can point to the bombs, we need this at Schiphol.
Let our airport send some people over there to admire this super device, I think the military is also interested.
How proud the Thai will be to be able to demonstrate this device to the farang! And it doesn't work on batteries or electricity either, let's face it!
If it really works as well as they claim, then for fun we had to send a consultant with a camera team from some small broadcaster. I wonder if they will still keep it working.
Meanwhile, a lot of people have butter on their heads.
This really beats everything, I had never heard of it.
But yeah, the guys want to see results, even if they're completely out of the blue, so hoppekee, there you go. No friends in high places, or they want to get rid of you, then you have done it, and the army achieves another "nice result".
Indeed. And then spread the word that they want peace in the South and that they still don't understand what those people want there.