Briefs | Thailand – New king appoints small council

Thailand’s new king named an 11-member council of advisers yesterday, bringing in three new officials, including a former army chief and two representatives of the ruling junta. The so-called Privy Council of Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun is smaller than the 16-member council of his father, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died on October 13. “The new appointments lend a more military presence to the Privy Council,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University, but “there has been more continuity from the new line-up than anticipated.”

The seven advisers who were retained are an ex-bureaucrat, an ex-minister, a former prime minister, three ex-jurists and the former chief of the air force. Vajiralongkorn faces a challenged country in which democracy has struggled to take root amid frequent coups and where political factions engage in bitter battles.

Philippines – Probe finds police murdered mayor

The Philippine government’s investigation agency said yesterday it has filed murder complaints against two dozen police officers and personnel after a probe showed they shot to death a jailed town mayor linked to illegal drugs and that there was no gunbattle as claimed by the law enforcers. The National Bureau of Investigation said the Nov. 5 shooting to death of Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. and another inmate, Raul Yap, in their cells was a “rubout.” It said the policemen most likely put pistols and illegal drugs in their cells to justify a police raid. The findings cast a black mark on President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly anti-drug crackdown. There are suspicions that some of the more than 4,000 slain drug suspects may have been killed deliberately by law enforcers.

Cambodia – Drug sentences upheld for foreigners

A Cambodian appeals court yesterday upheld the prison terms of a French woman, an Australian woman and a Nigerian man for trying to smuggle heroin to Australia. Judge Pol Sam Ouen said the sentences given by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in May 2014 to then-19-year-old Frenchwoman Charlene Savarino, 41-year-old Ann Yoshe Taylor of Australia and 23-year-old Precious Chneme Nwoko of Nigeria were correct and accorded with the law. The lower court had sentenced Savarino to 25 years in prison, Taylor to 23 years and Nwoko to 27 years. Nwoko, Savarino’s boyfriend, was believed to have masterminded the smuggling and asked Savarino to make the arrangements. Cambodia is not a major producer of illegal drugs but has increasingly become a smuggling transit route.