Academic guilty of lese majeste, libel: Democrats
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The Democrat Party yesterday accused red-shirt academic Suda Rangkupan of committing lese majeste by posting messages on Facebook that allegedly insulted the monarchy.
Wirat Kallayasiri, the party’s chief legal specialist, said December is an auspicious month. Thais wear yellow to wish His Majesty the King a happy birthday. So the party has decided to file a petition with General Rungroj Chamratromran, assistant defence minister, to crack down on all lese majeste offenders, which is the policy of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
The Democrats have also brought to the attention of the government that police have decided not to press lese majeste charges against the son of a Pheu Thai Party politician with the last name Walaisatien.
The party would also file a libel suit against Suda for saying the “Democrats sold out the country” for the damage incurred by the Financial Sector Restructuring Authority (FSRA). It was the Chavalit Yongchaiyudh government that caused the damage and the Democrats were left to resolve the problems, he said.
The red shirts always attacked the Democrats over the FSRA so he wanted to set the record straight.
The FSRA was established after the Chavalit government failed to ensure good governance in the finance sector. Politicians obtained loans with highly inflated collateral in banks such as Bangkok Bank of Commerce. Foreign reserves were drained to defend the baht before it was floated, he said.
Chavalit resigned to run away from the problems but before that he signed the “slave” deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that forced the next government to comply with many measures, he said.
The FSRA was established during the Chavalit government with Thaksin Shinawatra as his deputy. Chavalit suspended 58 financial institutions pending rehabilitation, he said.
The Democrats took over on November 14, 1997 and they could not interfere in the affairs of the FSRA as it was an independent agency, he said.
Two out of the 58 financial institutions were allowed to operate under rehabilitation. One was Kiatnakin Finance and Securities Plc, which belonged to the wife
of ex-deputy PM Pongthep Thepkanchana, who served in the Yingluck government, he said.
The claim that the FSRA auctioned assets seized from defunct financial companies worth Bt873.97 billion and received only Bt190 billion was a distortion of the truth, he said.
Of the Bt873.97 billion that the FSRA managed, Bt769.28 billion was debts of the Financial Institutions Development Fund and not just assets, which increased several-fold after the floating of the baht because the Thai currency plunged in value.
Besides, the assets placed as collateral with the finance companies were highly inflated and their value nearly evaporated due to the crisis, he said.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) had said that there were no cases related to the FSRA under its consideration, so the claim that cases sent to the NACC passed a statute of limitations was false, he said.
The NACC had resolved two cases related to the FSRA. The first involved collateral placed for the auctioning of debts/assets, in which the NACC sued the FSRA’s management. The Appeals Court threw out the suit and the Supreme Court is hearing the case.
The NACC is also prosecuting then FSRA official -general Montri Chenvidyakarn et al for acting in favour of Kiatnakin’s interests, resulting in huge losses to the state, he said.
