Courts issue warrants for arrest of Kamnan Sia and wife, who failed to appear for verdicts

For the reading of the verdict on a bidding collusion case in Kanchanaburi in 1999-2001, Khemporn sent her lawyer to ask for a postponement – submitting a doctor’s certificate saying that she had acute diarrhoea, which required rest at home from December 21-23. 

The court judge noted that she only had to rest at home – not hospital – so her condition was not so severe that she couldn’t show up, and this behaviour posed a flight risk. 

The court issued a warrant for the arrest of Khemporn and said the verdict would be read on January 25 at |9am.

The Criminal Court had found Kamnan Sia, Khemporn, Khemporn’s aide Wanna Lorpaiboon and another man, Thawil Sawasdee 

 (now deceased), guilty of illegal detention, blackmail and bidding collusion in a Kanchanaburi construction project in 1999-2001. 

Pracha was sentenced to a five-year jail term while the rest three defendants got four years each. The Appeals Court in September 2007 acquitted all defendants, so the case went to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, 72-year-old Kamnan Sia faced an arrest warrant yesterday for failing to show up for an Appeals Court verdict on a case about encroachment on state land. Last year, the primary court found Kamnan Sia guilty of encroaching illegally on 299 rai in Kanchanaburi’s Makham Tia district and 900 rai in Suan Phueng, Ratchaburi, sentencing him to a year in jail. 

His lawyer told the judge yesterday he couldn’t reach Kamnan Sia, so the court said Kamnan Sia’s behaviour constituted a flight risk and issued an arrest warrant for him. It also said the verdict would be read on January 25 at 9am.