DSI officials targeted in probe of Jomsap scandal

SEVEN Department of Special Investigation (DSI) officials will be summoned to make statements as part of a police investigation into an alleged plot to hire a man to take responsibility for a 2005 fatal hit-and-run crash as part of former teacher Jomsap Saenmuangkhot’s failed attempt to win a retrial.
The seven officers reportedly aided Jomsap’s retrial application by reviewing evidence to find grounds for a trial within days of a directive from deputy permanent secretary for Justice Pol Colonel Dusadee Arayawuth, a source at the Justice Ministry said. 
National police deputy chief Pol General Weerachai Songmetta said yesterday Jomsap had given useful information that might implicate DSI officers who allegedly knew that Sap Wapi, the man who claimed to have been involved in the crash, was lying to authorities. He also promised that police would gather evidence and interview all implicated people, who have only been identified as “officials”.

The Justice Ministry said Sap and Jomsap’s friend Suriya Nuancharoen, who is also a teacher, failed polygraph tests and were excluded from the list of witnesses submitted in the petition for a retrial.
Dusadee yesterday called a meeting to prepare information for the committee assigned by the ministry last week to investigate assistance for Jomsap’s retrial petition, including a budget disbursement of Bt80,000, and to handle a police summons over an accusation of conspiring in the plot, the source said.
National police deputy chief Pol General Weerachai Songmetta said the case had seen 34 witnesses interviewed, including 20 summoned on Sunday and another 14 yesterday. He said other people of interest related to the case, including Justice Ministry and DSI personnel, would be questioned later.

Petition for PM
Meanwhile, Phichit Khamkaew, head of the Justice Centre for Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom and Mukdahan provinces, said he would petition Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha via Nakhon Phanom governor Somchai Witdamrong to ask for special handling of Jomsap’s case because he did not trust the police investigation.
Office of Justice Affairs director Wanlop Nakbua, who heads the ministry’s investigative committee, said interviews with officials who aided Jomsap’s petition for a retrial were “a bid to improve the ministry’s criminal retrial petitions – the handling of cases – and not to punish anyone for bias”.
Weerachai Songmetta yesterday said Jomsap had admitted to police that she knew that Sap had made a false confession to driving the vehicle involved in the crash to take the blame in exchange for Bt400,000. An elderly cyclist, Lua Phorbumrung, was killed in the crash.

The alleged conversation between Jomsap and Sap apparently took place before she submitted a petition for a retrial. At the time, Sap was under witness protection in Bangkok. Given that timeline, Jomsap would have known that Sap was a false witness but insisted on continuing the court sessions from February 8 to 10 petitioning for a retrial, Weerachai said.
Meanwhile, Jomsap will remain in detention after a Nakhon Phanom court yesterday refused to approve her release on bail on the grounds that she might tamper with witnesses and evidence. She is accused of perjury allegedly committed to clear her of the original crime. 

Her relatives had offered Bt200,000 as collateral for bail, while she claimed she feared for her safety while being detained.
Suriya, who appeared to be experiencing stress, said he accepted that he would face jail due to his efforts in the alleged plot to clear his childhood friend’s name. 

He added that both he and Jomsap had denied charges of presenting false evidence to the court and racketeering during interrogations that lasted for hours on Sunday. 
“But I admitted certain things,” he said. “After the Nakhon Phanom Court ordered Bt170,000 compensation be paid to the victim’s family, Sert Roopsa-art told police that he couldn’t drive and another man told police that he bought the pickup truck with licence plate ‘Bor Khor 56 Mukdahan’ and already sold it for parts. With such facts coming out, the plot was falling apart.”
Sert had initially told police that he had been driving the vehicle in the crash before Sap stepped forward to make the same claim, saying that he had been driving the vehicle with the given licence plate.
Weerachai said police would continue to interrogate Suriya, who has demanded a lawyer. Suriya has previously been accused of at least four separate crimes of illegal logging and having Siamese rosewood in his possession. Two of the cases are currently facing trial at the Supreme Court.
Police are also investigating Suriya’s links to Sap, who has been accused of illegal logging in 2013. Sert also reportedly once worked as a woodcutter for Suriya, Weerachai said. He also said Suriya’s retraction in front of journalists saying that Jomsap had nothing to do with the plot did not affect the case, as he had already been recorded sharing extensive details with police after his arrest in Bangkok.