Alleged drug lord blames Thai army

Suspect Naw Kham signs on a form in Kunming, China's Yunnan Province. Six suspects of last year's deadly attack on the Mekong River that left 13 Chinese sailors killed stood trial Thursday.//Xinhua

Beijing - Alleged Golden Triangle drug lord Nor Kham told a Chinese court on Thursday that he believed Thai soldiers killed 13 Chinese sailors in the Mekong river in October, reportedly retracting his earlier confession to the crime.

Prosecutors in the south-western city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, charged Nor Kham and five accomplices with murder, drug trafficking, kidnapping and hijacking ships, state media reported.

But in a surprise move for China's carefully orchestrated trialsystem, Nor Kham denied any involvement in the case when questioned in court on Thursday, despite reportedly confessing his involvement to police.

The semi-official China News Service said prosecutors asked him if he commanded and took part in hijacking Chinese ships, killing the ships' crew and planting drugs on the vessels.

Nor Kham denied all charges and said: "The (crime) was carried outby the Thais. I knew about it through television." The agency quoted Liu Yuejin, director of the Ministry of Public Security's anti-narcotics bureau, as saying Nor Kham's denialof all charges was unlikely to change the course of the trial.

"Even though Nor Kham withdraws the confession, it won't change the facts of the crime because the evidence is conclusive," Liu wasquoted as saying.

Myanmar citizen Nor Kham, 44, was extradited from Laos to China in May following joint operations by police from Thailand, Laos and China.

State broadcaster China Central Television identified two co-defendants from Myanmar by the Chinese names Zha Bo and Zha Tuobo.

Two more defendants with Thai and Lao nationality were named asSangkang Zhasa and Zha Xika, while the nationality of the sixth defendant, Yi Lai, was not given.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted Dong Lin, the court's vice president, as saying before the trial that it was "uncommon in China's judicial practice for foreigners who commit crimes against Chinese nationals outside China to be brought to justice before aChinese court."

Reports said relatives of the 13 Chinese victims and embassy personnel from the defendants' countries attended the trial, which would continue until Saturday.

Xian Yanming, Yunnan's deputy police chief, told the China Daily newspaper earlier that Nor Kham's gang had "colluded with renegade Thai soldiers in premeditated attacks on Chinese ships."

They wanted to "make it appear that the (Thai) authorities had uncovered a major drug-related case" by planting drugs on the ships and pretending that the Chinese sailors were drug traffickers whodied in a shoot-out, Xian said.

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