BANGKOK: The Supreme Court on Thursday (June 27) upheld the death sentence issued against former deputy commerce minister Banyin Tangpakorn by the lower courts for premeditated murder of a construction businessman back in 2015.
The Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Criminal and Appeals courts that convicted Banyin for collaborating with others to murder Chuwong Saetung, 50, and disguised his death as a road accident.
Initially, Banyin reported to police on June 26, 2015 that a car driven by him hit a roadside tree on Chalerm Phrakiart Road in Bangkok’s Prawet district and his front-seat passenger, Chuwong, got killed.
Chuwong’s family did not believe his account and filed a complaint with police, resulting in an investigation which found that Banyin had murdered the businessman in Samut Prakans’ Bang Pli district before driving his body to the site where he faked the accident scene.
The suspicion arose because Banyin took two hours to drive from a golf course in Samut Prakan to the accident scene.
The family reviewed Chuwong’s financial affairs and found that 10 days before the crash, he had transferred shares worth 38 million baht to a marketing officer at a stock brokerage close to Banyin.
Another 228 million baht worth of shares were transferred to a caddie at a golf course. So the family suspected Banyin had used forged documents to transfer the shares and later murdered Chuwong.
The Criminal Court ruled on Jan 20, 2021 that Banyin and his accomplices had murdered Chuwong and faked the accident with the intention of embezzling his assets. The court sentenced him to death.
Banyin appealed against the ruling but the Appeals Court ruled on August 25 2022 that there was no reason to reverse the guilty verdict of the primary court.
Anek Khamchum, a lawyer for Chuwong’s family, said the Supreme Court agreed with the verdict of the appeals court and upheld the death sentence.
Last year, the Appeals Court also sentenced Banyin to death for the murder of a judge’s brother.
The Appeals Court upheld the guilty verdict in the murder of Veeracai Sakuntaprasert, the elder brother of judge Panida Sakunprasert, on Feb 4, 2020. Panida was handling the share swindling case against Banyin at that stage.
Panida said she was intimidated several times to dismiss the case and her brother was kidnapped in front of the court in early February 2020 to try to pressure her to dismiss the case. Verachai’s bruised body was later found in a river in Nakhon Sawan province. - The Nation/ANN
