THAILAND: Senior forestry official jailed for taking bribes in Salaween scandal

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Senior forestry official jailed for taking bribes in Salaween scandal

 

Published on Nov 11 , 2005

 

A senior forestry official and a sawmill owner were sentenced Friday to

serve their respective jail term of five and two years for accepting and pay

Bt5 million bribes stemmed from the Salaween log poaching scandal in 1997.

 

Following a four-year trial, the Criminal Court found Prawat Thanadkha,

former deputy director general of the Forestry Department, guilty of taking

kickbacks from Winai Panitchayanuban.

 

" After defendant Prawat had taken money paid by co-defendant Winai, the

bribery took place even though he did not subsequently fulfil the conditions

for which the bribes were intended, " the court said in its verdict.

 

The bribery case came to public attention after Prawat tried to donate the

cash to a government fund for salvaging the economy during the Chuan Leekpai

administration prompting the investigation on how the money came into his

possession.

 

Investigators linked the bribes to the Salaween scandal that exposed a large

network of rough forestry officials and businessmen conspiring to falsify

records to declare logs as imported from Burma when they were in fact

poached from local forests.

 

At the commencing of the Prawat-Winai trial in 2001, prosecutors argued that

Winai paid kickbacks in order to convince Prawat to release his 14,600 logs

seized in connection with the Salaween scandal. The logs were worth Bt180

million.

 

After the verdict session, the co-defendants were released on bail pending

the filing of appeals within 30 days.