Srettha sues Chuwit for THB500 million damages over tax evasion allegation

Winyat Chartmontree represented Srettha to file the lawsuit against Chuwit at the Criminal Court.

The lawsuit asked the court to order Chuwit to pay compensation of 500 million baht for damaging Srettha’s image.

Speaking to reporters after filing the lawsuit, Winyat said Srettha suspected that Chuwit had a political motivation in making the allegation on August 3, just one day before Parliament was initially scheduled to convene a meeting to elect the prime minister. The meeting was adjourned pending a decision by the Constitutional Court on a parliamentary regulation regarding resubmission of a candidate's name for PM.

In his allegation broadcast live on social network platforms, Chuwit alleged that Srettha, and property developer Sansiri, under his leadership in 2019, had colluded with the land owners to evade 521 million baht in excise tax on their purchase of a coveted 400-square-wah land plot on Bangkok’s Sarasin Road priced at 4 million baht per square wah. (One square wah equals 4 square metres.)

Srettha was Sansiri’s chief executive officer, president, and chairman of the executive committee before entering politics. He is now one of the three prime ministerial candidates of the Pheu Thai Party, which is leading an effort to form a new coalition government.

The lawyer said Chuwit knew at the time of his press conference on August 3 that Srettha would be nominated as Pheu Thai PM candidate at the parliamentary meeting the following day.

Winyat said Chuwit had deliberately used false information to portray to MPs, senators and general members of the public that Srettha was a bad person ahead of the PM vote.

“The defendant had the intention to deceive the people who watched the live broadcast of his press conference that the plaintiff was a bad person who has cheated on tax, who had no record of good governance and who was being clearly dishonest. The defendant had defamed the plaintiff and caused him to be hated by the public,” Winyat said in his defamation lawsuit.

Last week, Sansiri issued a statement defending Srettha, saying the sellers of the land plot had agreed to be responsible for the taxes stemming from the land sale.

“It is the legal duty of the land sellers to pay excise tax. Sansiri has the duty of making payment at the agreed price and getting the land ownership transferred. Sansiri has no knowledge of or involvement with the land sellers’ tax payment,” the statement said.

Winyat said although Chuwit had revealed that he was fighting terminal cancer, it did not mean that he was always uttering the truth.