Thai police seek arrest of coup protest leaders

BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) -- Thai police sought on Monday to arrest eight leaders of an anti-coup protest that turned violent at the weekend, resulting in injuries to 100 police and demonstrators.

Six protesters have already been detained for throwing rocks and bottles at police lines outside the house of Privy Council chief and top royal adviser Prem Tinsulanonda, whom they accuse of masterminding last year's putsch against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Bangkok police chief Adisorn Nonsee said the courts had been asked to issue arrest warrants for the leaders of the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD), as the protest movement calls itself.

From now on, officers would be allowed to use greater force to bring unruly demonstrations under control, especially as the political temperature rose in the run-up to a referendum on a new post-coup constitution on August 19, he added.

"If the situation escalates, police can use batons, shields and other equipment, including tear gas, to restore order," Adisorn said.

More than 40 people, including police officers, were taken to hospital for minor head wounds and other injuries after the Sunday evening clashes, hospital officials said.

DAAD, a mix of Thaksin loyalists and academics opposed to what was the 18th coup in 75 years of on-off democracy, vowed to keep up the pressure on former army chief and prime minister Prem, who remains one of Thailand's most powerful figures.

"All we wished for was the resignation of General Prem Tinsulanonda as the leader of the Privy Council," DAAD said in a statement.

"But his stern reply to us was in the form of beating and assault on male and female alike with no love and respect for their own countrymen."

At face value, the coup stemmed from middle-class street protests in 2006 against Thaksin's autocratic style and huge personal wealth, which his opponents say he wielded unfairly to secure unassailable support from rural voters.

But analysts say it was as much about a royalist military and corporate elite removing a nouveau riche, ethnic Chinese businessman who had encroached too far on their traditional turf.

Thaksin was in New York at the time of the coup and has spent most of the interim in London, where he has bought an English football club, or traveling round Asia playing golf and giving interviews and lectures. E-mail to a friend

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