DSI denies culpability in Jomsap case
THE DEPARTMENT of Special Investigation (DSI) has denied a direct role in the case surrounding hit-and-run convict Jomsap Saenmuangkhot, who is now accused of hiring a scapegoat to claim responsibility for a fatal accident she caused in 2005.
“Jomsap’s case is not a special case. We never conducted any investigation related to her,” DSI chief Pol Colonel Paisit Wongmuang said yesterday.
He said DSI officials worked on the case after they had been asked to help by the Justice Ministry.
Jomsap was convicted of hitting a bicyclist with her pickup in 2005, causing his death, and then fleeing the scene. In 2013, the Supreme Court found her guilty and sentenced her to a jail term.
Although Jomsap was released early on a royal pardon, she sought a retrial citing new evidence including the testimony of Sap Wapi who claimed he had been responsible for the hit-and-run accident.
After the Supreme Court reviewed the evidence, it threw out Jomsap’s request for a retrial and cited a plot to falsify evidence. Jomsap and several of her alleged accomplices are now being detained pending the ongoing police investigation into alleged perjury and related crimes.
Last week, police said they were considering whether to press charges against Justice Ministry officials for their alleged roles in the case.
Some of the officials are DSI staff who were on temporary assignments to help the Justice Ministry.
DSI deputy spokesman Pol Major Worranun Srilum said a deputy permanent secretary for Justice had requested that DSI officials be assigned to help at a complaint-receiving centre that was under his supervision.
Although Worranun did not identify the deputy permanent secretary by name, it was clear the official was Pol Colonel Dusadee Arawuit, the deputy permanent secretary for Justice who is facing a probe launched by the Justice Ministry.
In response to the deputy permanent secretary’s request, the DSI administered lie-detector tests to people involved in Jomsap’s case and reported the results to the Justice Ministry.
“We were not involved in how the ministry used the information,” Worranun said.
Dusadee admitted, only after Jomsap’s request for a retrial was rejected, that he had been aware that Sap did not pass the lie-detector test while he was claiming responsibility for the fatal road accident.
Paisit added that he would not protect DSI officials if they are found to have assisted Jomsap in wrongdoing.