Am Cyanide gets life sentence in Captain Nui poisoning case

The Criminal Court has sentenced Sararat, widely known as “Am Cyanide”, to death for the premeditated murder of a female police captain known as “Captain Nui”, before reducing the penalty to life imprisonment.

The ruling was read on April 30, 2026, at the Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road. Prosecutors had charged Sararat with premeditated murder over the suspicious death of a female police captain, whose autopsy found traces of cyanide in her body.

After examining evidence presented by prosecutors and investigators, the court found that Sararat had committed the offence as charged.

The court said the evidence showed prior planning and the deliberate use of poison. It found that the poisoning reflected clear intent to kill and was a serious, brazen act showing disregard for the law.

The court initially sentenced Sararat to death. However, because her testimony during trial was deemed useful to establishing the facts of the case, the court reduced the sentence by one-third, leaving her with life imprisonment.

Relatives of Captain Nui and lawyers who had followed the case said after the ruling that they were satisfied with the verdict. They said the court had clearly established the defendant’s guilt, and that despite the reduction to life imprisonment, justice had been served for the victim.

The “Am Cyanide” case is regarded as one of Thailand’s most shocking criminal cases. Investigators later expanded the probe to examine the deaths of more than 10 people close to Sararat, many of whom were initially reported to have died from sudden heart failure before cyanide was later detected.

The Captain Nui case has been described as a key case that helped expose the wider alleged cyanide serial-murder pattern.