Net widens further as Mae Hong Son child-sex scandal snares politicians
Police will apply to a court for summonses for three more people, including a local politician, suspected of buying sex services from girls under 18 in the Mae Hong Son prostitution scandal, while they continue to look for evidence against another three individuals, a senior officer said.
Following a five-hour meeting in Chiang Mai regarding the investigation, Provincial Police Region 5 chief Pol Lt-General Pulsap Prasertsak yesterday said that two more suspects would be brought for questioning at the Muang Mae Hong Son police station today.
Besides former Mae Hong Son governor Suebsak Eaimvijarn, who has been cleared by police, investigators believed that Wasu Phan-ngern, president of the Ban Mai Tambon Administrative Organisation in the Bang Yai district of Nonthaburi province, also was not involved in buying sex services or having knowledge of such activities, Pulsap said.
Tambon politician Chuchat Poungchin was arrested and allegedly confessed to buying sex from an underage girl and telling the girl that he was the governor.
The Provincial Police Region 5 investigation team is handling 38 cases linked to the Mae Hong Song prostitution ring and recently identified six individuals, including a local politician, who might have bought sex services. Three of them would be served with summonses soon, he said.
Pulsap said that Federation of Assistant District Chiefs of Thailand chairman Boonyarit Nipawanit, who frequently spoke to media about the case, had already been summoned once for information but police investigators found that nearly all of what he knew was hearsay and that he had jumped to several conclusions.
Meanwhile, Suebsak’s daughter Charasnapa Eaimvijarn said her father had forgiven everyone who “misunderstood” him over the false accusations.
Thanking the “Mam Pho Dam”, or Queen of Spades, Facebook page for giving the family a chance to defend him since the beginning, Charasnapa in her post on the popular page also said some media were mean to mock her father’s reported Dhamma interests and his routine of meditating for one hour a day.
She said the family was hit hard by the accusations and insisted that her father should not be punished for negligence in allowing the offences to take place, as he was newly appointed at the time.