Justice Ministry, police at odds over Jomsap case

FORMER TEACHER Jomsap Saenmuangkhot’s case has apparently driven a wedge between the Justice Ministry and the Royal Thai Police.
As the ministry warned people not to publicly criticise the Supreme Court’s ruling that jailed Jomsap,  senior police officers said yesterday that police were initially right about the case given her suspicious attempt to prove her innocence.
Police added that they would file complaints against six individuals involved in a “false confessionforhire” network.
As the early steps of an attempt to exonerate Jomsap in a retrial proceed, Lieutenant Somneuk Siangkong, a spokesman for the Office of the AttorneyGeneral, warned people not to show contempt for the Supreme Court regarding its ruling in the 2005 hitandrun case, which would remain in effect unless a retrial was ordered.
An elderly man on a bicycle was killed in the incident.
He said the Appeals Court Region 4 had ordered the Nakhon Phanom Provincial Court to schedule a hearฌing from February 8 to 10 to hear witฌness testimony to determine the grounds to reopen the case and subฌmit information for the Supreme Court’s ruling on whether to order a retrial, in line with the Retrial of Criminal Case Act 1983.
Deputy spokesman Prayuth Phetchakun echoed the same opinion and warned people not to criticise or show contempt for the court, adding that people should not jump to conฌclusions or use the word “scapegoat” because the facts of the case remained to be determined.
Meanwhile, Deputy Permanent Secretary for the Justice Ministry Pol Colonel Dusadee Arayawuth said the ministry had helped to find “new eviฌdence” in line with its duties to assure justice for members of the public memฌbers such as Jomsap. He smiled at reporters when he was asked if he was confident that the evidence would be sufficient to change the court verdict.
Dusadee added that he believed Sap Wapi, a man the Jomsap camp claims is responsible for the 2005 incident, and eyewitness Thassanee Hanphrayak would testify as defence witnesses in the upcoming hearing. He added that it was not the time to argue about the case or express opinฌions because the court needed to conฌsider the case.
However, Dusadee offered a genฌeral opinion that if an innocent perฌson were imprisoned, society suffered doubly by punishing him or her and letting the real culprit walk free.
Meanwhile, Police InspectorGeneral Pol General Panya Mamen said police chief Pol General Chathip Chaijinda had assigned him to invesฌtigate the case out of a concern for the judicial process as well as to deterฌmine the integrity of the investigation.
Panya said he had determined that the police officers involved in the case had done their jobs thoroughly, while an attempt to revive the case was susฌpicious and possibly involved illegal actions such providing false inforฌmation or illegallyobtained evidence to establish a “false confessionforhire”.
However, he said police could not say at this stage if Jomsap was involved in the network, but police were confident that Sap had made a confession on behalf of Jomsap.
He said police would launch legal action against those involved in any wrongdoing that took place in Nakhon Phanom, adding that he thought the situation would be clarified within two days.
Panya said police had interviewed a former Mukdahan senator as a witฌness.
“The politician was allegedly approached in 2014 to serve as a lawyer for Jomsap, after the Supreme Court’s ruling, in exchange for Bt200,000 to Bt300,000, but he turned down the offer. It was found that the network had been on this case since the Appeals Court acquitted Jomsap,” he said, adding that there were six individuals involved and they would face police complaints.
He said such networks had carried out similar operations in many preฌvious cases in the Northeast.