Supreme Court retains jail term for illegal logging couple

The court ruled that Udom, 54, and Deang Sirisorn, 51, were guilty of encroaching on logging on 72 rai (11.5 hectares) of the national forest and they were also guilty of illegal logging and possessing illegal timber. Their sentences were reduced to five years.
Their lawyer Songkran Achariyasap said after the verdict that they were prepared to ask for a retrial as they were confident of the couple’s innocence.
“We will ask the court to revive the case, because we have new significant evidence. I shall disclose the details of the new evidence later when I submit the petition to revive the case,” Songkran said.
He said they considered asking for a suspension of the jail term because Udom has already served one year and eight months in jail, while Deang has already spent one year and nine months in prison.
The couple, from Non Sa-ard village in Kalasin’s Huai Mek district, appealed to the Supreme Court in three areas. First, they claim they were persuaded by others to confess to the crime. Second, the police investigation was unjust as officers did advise the couple of the full details of the crime. And last, the defendants asked the court to suspend the sentence.
The court rejected the first and second appeals, reasoning that the defendants’ claims were invalid. It found that the officers had disclosed the full details of the crime to the defendants and as they denied committing the crime it meant that they understood the details.
On the third appeal, the court noted that they had willingly turned themselves in and confessed to their crime in Criminal Court, so it was just to lower the penalties of the defendants from a total of 10 years, six years for having illegal timber and four years for illegal logging, to five years for each defendant.
The court also said that the investigation into the original 2010 incident showed that the defendants were members of an illegal logging group and witnesses saw them running away when forest rangers found them cutting trees in the national forest area.
Because of this, the court found that they were hired by capitalists who wanted to deforest the area and intended to encroach on the forestland.
The couple claimed that they entered the forest to pick wild mushrooms and said they confessed because they were told to do so to end the case quickly.
The couple was previously judged to be guilty in the Criminal Court and were sentenced 30 years in jail, but they confessed so the penalties decreased to 15 years in September 24, 2011.
The Appeal Court also judged that they were guilty of forest encroachment and upheld the sentence in April 25, |2012.
Justice Ministry deputy secretary-general Tawatchai Thaikyo said that although the case had reached a final decision, it is possible for them to ask for a revival of the case or a royal pardon.
However, to revive the case, they must be sure that there is significant new evidence that can overturn the original verdict or they can prove that original evidence or witness account is fake.