Yingluck petitions NACC to change ‘antagonistic’ panel chief

In a petition submitted to the anti-graft body on behalf of Yingluck, her lawyer Norawich La-laeng said that Supa Piyajitti, an NACC commissioner who heads six subcommittees, is not fit for the task due to her antagonistic views about the former prime minister.

Among the pending cases are those concerning alleged mismanagement during the massive 2011 floods and alleged wrongdoings in payment of compensation to those affected by political unrest.

Norawich said Supa was head of the subcommittee in charge of accounting for the previous government’s rice-pledging scheme and she had leaked confidential data to the opposition and later testified in the Supreme Court against Yingluck in the rice-pledging case.

As a result, she is an antagonist and biased against the defendant. So it is not fair for the anti-graft body to appoint such a person to take charge of investigation in other cases involving Yingluck, the petition said.

According to the lawyer, the NACC should have appointed other commissioners to lead the investigation. At present, the NACC has nine commissioners.

Meanwhile, Yingluck said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha |should focus on improving the |people’s economic well-being |rather than on the criminal and |civil-liability cases against her.

The former premier said there are already 15 cases pending against her. Yingluck said she has not been treated fairly as the cases against her are being fast-tracked compared to those against other politicians.

Earlier, her former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom and five others were also hit with civil-liability lawsuits to pay a combined Bt20-billion compensation to the government for financial damage caused by alleged fake government-to-government contracts to sell 6.2 million tonnes of rice to China.