‘Ying Kai’ jailed three years in forced-labour case

Ratchadapisek Criminal Court in Bangkok imposed the sentence in a lawsuit brought by a plaintiff identified only as Kanchana.
Monta was also ordered to pay Kanchana Bt590,000 in compensation.
The case was related to allegations that Monta, 60, employed three young women to work as her servants without pay or days off from 2006-2010.
Complaints filed by the two other former maids were dismissed due to insufficient evidence.
But the court found that Monta withheld Kanchana’s national ID card and reneged on her promises to pay her Bt6,000 a month in salary and to finance her training at a nursing college.
The court ruled that the ID was seized for the purpose of benefiting from forced labour, in violation of the Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2008.
Monta was sentenced to a four-year jail term, but a quarter of the time was deducted because she had given investigators “useful information”.
Monta, detained at Central Women’s Correctional Institute in Bang Khen district, will be making further court appearances on charges of lodging false police complaints against her former maids and of attempted human trafficking. As for the lese majeste offence, Monta was already sentenced to seven years and six months on June 6, 2017 after Monta changed her plea to guilty on charges of claiming on three occasions in 2012 to be a royally appointed khunying.