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Death penalty for Michael Wansley's murderers


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Death penalty for Michael Wansley's murderers

 

Criminal Court delivered death penalties on two men on Tuesday for murdering an Australian auditor, Michael Wansley in Nakhon Sawan province in 1999.

 

 

 

 

The Court found that Somchoke Suthiviriwan and Sompong Buasakoon guilty of planned murder Wansley in March 1999.

 

Wansley, 58 at the time of his death, was travelling to a sugar mill in Nakhon Sawan when two men on a motorcycle pulled alongside his van and shot him dead.

 

Wansley, an employee of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, had been hired by the banking creditors of the Kaset Thai Sugar Co to help address the firm's Bt17.1-billion debt.

 

The Court acquitted the mill's owner, Pradit Siriviriyakul, who was initially charged with masterminding the murder because of lack of evidence.

 

Australia had complained in 2003 of what it called tardiness in the slow investigations and trial into the murder. At that time, police was still only at the stage of interrogating state witness.

 

The Nation 05/09/06

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Typical. My brother-in-law was gunned down in a hit most certainly paid for by a competitor. The gunmen was later killed by the police, but the perp who had hired him got away Scot free.

 

p.s. This had happened so long ago that I didn't even recognise the Wansley's name until I saw the circumstances. The poor fellow didn't seem to realise that honesty is not always the best policy in Thailand.

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  • 4 years later...

Appeals denied in sugar mill murder case

By KESINEE TAENGKIEW

The Nation

Published on July 14, 2011

 

The Appeals Court yesterday upheld a life term and two death sentences on three men for their involvement in the 1999 murder of Australian auditor Michael Wansley. Another accused, Kasetthai sugar mill owner Pradit Siriviriyakul, was acquitted after the court gave him the benefit of doubt.

The court yesterday read the verdict in the case against Kasetthai executives - Boonpan Suthiwiriwan, Somchoke Suthiwiriwan, and Pradit and their accomplice Sompong Buasakul - for masterminding the murder of 58-year-old Wansley. He was shot dead on March 10, 1999, while on his way to audit the books of the sugar mill in Nakhon Sawan.

The indictment said Pradit hired Boonpan, Somchoke, Sompong and hit man Somchai Jaihao to kill Wansley because he had uncovered financial irregularities in the business, which was in the process of debt restructuring. Somchai has been tried and given a life sentence by Nakhon Sawan Court.

On September 5, 2006, the lower court sentenced Boonpan to life, condemned Somchoke and Sompong to death and acquitted Pradit. The public prosecutor and co-plaintiffs then submitted an appeal to get Pradit punished while the three other defendants appealed for acquittal.

The Appeals Court was told Boonpan arranged for a motorcycle and a gun, while Somchoke and Sompong helped the alleged gunmen Somchai and Pichet Khaewsamduang (who was acquitted by a lower court in a separate trial) in fleeing to Bangkok. The Appeals Court upheld the lower-court rulings handing down a life sentence to Boonpan and death sentences to the other two men.

Finding weakness in evidence against Pradit, the Appeals Court upheld his acquittal by the lower court on benefit of doubt.

All defendants were present at the verdict reading yesterday. Boonpan was sick and in a wheelchair, while Pradit had dozens of people come to the court to give him moral support.

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/07/14/national/Appeals-denied-in-sugar-mill-murder-case-30160234.html

 

Pics of a couple of the defendants being led into court.

http://i53.tinypic.com/111mumb.jpg

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The ones (cases) that don't 'just disappear' just take a decade or two to be resolved. :banghead:

 

Sure would have liked to have seen the sugar mill owner get his as well, the dirty bastard. Death is too good for the scumbag, yet he walks away free and clear. I remember this case. About time it finished its way through the snail paced court system.

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I remember the case very well. Mike had a son who flew up for the services at, what I believe was then called, Park Suanplu. It was incredibly sad.

 

And Thais wonder, or claim to wonder, why foreigners don't have faith in their court system...

 

 

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Seems to me this case is an example of how the Thai court system does indeed work, though as with many others in the world it does take decades to do so and the rich and influential who can get good attorneys to sow doubt in the mind of the court and juries, often get off.

TH

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