Lawyer of accused maid provides new CCTV evidence

 The clip according to Songkran shows Monta throwing a book at and slapping another woman on the head in her condominium, according to Songkran. 

Songkran said he had obtained this footage from a person close to the accused to depict Monta’s alleged aggressive behaviour to the Lawyers Council of Thailand and the Crime Suppression Police. He also asked why Monta did not use any footage from within her condominium as evidence to back her theft claims. 

“It would have provided a clearer and a better angle of the former maid’s alleged theft [compared to the CCTV clip from the condominium’s hallway that she used],” he said. 

Meanwhile, Srisuwan Sorasak, chief of Mae Hong Son Shelter for Children and Family and Prachabodi Centre, said police were now providing protection to six young women as requested. 

The women claim to have been lured to work with Monta before some of them ended up facing imprisonment due to allegedly false accusations of theft. Srisuwan said the women and other witnesses claimed that Monta boasted of working at the palace and often had phone conversations using Royal vocabulary – police are checking to see if this act violates the lese majeste code. 

Metropolitan Police Bureau acting chief Pol Lt-General Sanit Mahathaworn said yesterday that police were keeping an eye on Monta during her merit-making trip to Chiang Rai. 

Monta has been summoned to see the police on July 11 to hear charges of filing a faulty complaint against Prapawan and bullying her into facing prosecution. If Monta fails to respond to the summons, police would issue another summonses and subsequently apply for an arrest warrant, he added.

Sanit said he believes Monta might have an influential supporter, though nobody has shown up to influence the investigation despite her claims of knowing a high-ranking police officer.

Prapawan has claimed that Monta accused her of theft because she had refused her offer to work overseas. Investigators revealed that several other maids working for Monta had suffered a similar fate, and are checking to see if her alleged adoption of teenage girls and then sending them abroad fell within the frame of human trafficking. 

It was reported that a March 24, 2014 letter from Sathien Viponmaha, then-secretary of PM’s Office Minister Santi Prompat, to apply for Monta’s expired civil service passport said she was part of a team under Sathien and had to attend a merit-making event in Germany in June the same year.