Pattani, Thailand  - A court in southern Thailand on Friday cleared military personnel of any misconduct in the Tak Bai incident in October, 2004, an action that resulted in the death of 85 Thai-Muslims.

The Songkhla Court ruled that military personnel were carrying out their duties in the Tak Bai crackdown, in which 78 alleged demonstrators suffocated after being stacked like logs on trucks taking them to prison.

The court, ruling on a post-mortem inquest into the Tak Bai incident, noted that Thai authorities were acting under an Emergency Law which states officials could not be subjected to civil, criminal or disciplinary liabilities arising from their actions while performing their duty.

"The relatives of the victims are not satisfied with the decision," said Anchana Nilaphaichit, whose lawyer husband Somchai went missing more than five years ago when trying to defend Thai-Muslims charged with terrorist activities in the deep South.

"The people can't do anything," Anchana said. "All they can do is walk away." She added that some relatives were expected to appeal the verdict.

On October 25, 2004, Thai soldiers cracked down on thousands of demonstrators at Tak Bai, Narathiwat province, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, with tear gas, water cannon and batons.

More than 1,000 of the demonstrators were tied and loaded on army trucks, piled five bodies high, to be taken to Ingkayuthaborihaan Army Camp in Pattani.

Some 78 of the prisoners died of suffocation en route to the camp. Seven others died in the crackdown on the demonstration.

The incident, which outraged human rights activists and Muslim communities around the world, also helped to inflame a separatist struggle in the majority-Muslim deep South, which has simmered for decades.

Some 3,500 people have died in the escalating violence in the deep South - comprising Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces - over the past five years.

The region's separatist struggle took a more militant turn in January, 2004, when insurgents raided an army depot, killing four soldiers and making off with 300 weapons.

The incident sparked a series of brutal government crackdowns, including the Tak Bai incident, on the separatist movement, which turned much of the area's 2 million people, 80 per cent of whom are Muslim, against the central government.

Although the region, which centuries ago was the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago, it has never wholly submitted to Bangkok's rule.

Analysts said the region's Muslim population, the majority of whom speak a Malay dialect and follow Malay customs, feels alienated from the predominantly Buddhist Thai state.(dpa)