The three defendants – found guilty of racketeering, extortion, illegal confinement and bid-rigging – failed to show up at the court, so the verdict was read in their absence and warrants issued for their arrest.
The Criminal Court had sentenced the 73-year-old Pracha to five years in prison while his wife, her aide and another man (now deceased) received four years behind bars, |then the Appeals Court acquitted them, which prompted the public prosecutor to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Pracha also got a three-year jail term from the Appeals Court yesterday for another case about encroachment on state land, and was issued an
arrest warrant for failing to show up. Pracha encroached on almost 1,200 rai (192 hectares) of state land in Kanchanaburi’s Dan Makham Tia district and Ratchaburi’s Suan Phung district between 1990 and 2004. In this case, the Criminal Court had given Pracha a year in jail, but he appealed to the upper court for a lower sentence.