PROBE URGED INTO RUMOUR-MONGERS

       Senator Somchai Sawangkarn yesterday pressured the government to launch an investigation into four groups of people suspected of spreading the rumours about His Majesty the King's health, which led to a recent sell-off of shares in the stock market.
       Somchai said the attack was planned in a series, starting in June, when a Thai-Vietnamese reporter at Bloomberg wrote an article on the issue. While the article was rerun, more such articles appeared in the foreign media this month when the red-shirts staged a rally and activist Ji Ungpakorn released a written piece. The government must file charges against those behind the rumours and get the Anti-Money Laundering Commission (AMLO) to chase the money trail and find the beneficiaries, he added.
       "It violated the security laws and the government needs to arrest the culprits. Never again should the institution be used to crash the stock market," he said. He also pointed a finger at some university lecturers who were in-volved in the October political demonstrations in 1973 and 1976, political activists opposed to the |constitutional monarchy, those who want to discredit the present government and attain a House dissolution, and those who are seeking funding for their political campaigns.
       The process also involved some investors with political connections with the initials Por, Yor, Wor, Sor and Phor, he said, who had worked with stock analysts in dictating the stock market. He said AMLO's help was necessary to support the Department |of Special Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commis-sion (SEC) probes.
       Finance Minister Korn Chatika-vanij echoed Somchai's concerns that inauspicious rumours were having a negative psychological impact. He said the SEC and the Stock Exchange of Thailand had been negligent in finding out the source of the rumours. Both have been reprimanded for insisting on probing only rumours involving listed companies, as stock prices also moved on other news.