Court finds Thaksin wife guilty of tax evasion

dpa

In a politically-loaded ruling, Criminal Court on Thursday found Pojaman Shinawatra - wife of coup-ousted premier Thaksin - guilty of tax evasion in a 1997 share transaction, court official said.

The heavily-guarded court, surrounded by some 2,000 Thaksin-supporters holding red roses, sentenced Pojaman to three years in jail for avoiding a tax bite amounting to 546 million baht (16.3 million dollars) on a share transfer to her step-brother Bannapot Damapong and her secretary Karnchanapa Honghern in 1997.

Bannapot was also sentenced to three years in jail and Karnchanapa to two years.

Thaksin and the couple's three children sat stony-faced throughout the ruling at the Bangkok court which was guarded by some 500 police. Pojaman had pleaded not guilty to the charge of tax evasion, claiming that the 738 million baht (22 million dollars) share transfer of Shinawatra Computer and Communications stock was a gift, not a business transaction.

The court said it had decided on a heavy sentence because both Pojaman and Bannapot were well-known public figures with responsibility to society.

Pojaman, who managed Thaksin's billion-dollar fortune and ran his business empire when he was prime minister between 2001 to 2006, is expected to appeal the ruling.

The court's verdict could pave the way for similar guilty rulings against Thaksin who faces at least three cases of malfeasance and abuse of power at the Supreme Court for Political Office Holders in the coming months. Thaksin, a former billionaire telecommunication tycoon who was prime minister between 2001 to 2006, was ousted by a military coup on September 19, 2006, on charges of corruption, dividing the nation and undermining democracy and the monarchy.

Thaksin remains one of Thailand's most controversial political figures.

Using populist policies Thaksin won the devotion of masses of rural and urban poor, but amid growing evidence of corruption and self-serving policies during his increasingly monopolistic rule, the Bangkok-based middle class and political elite turned against him in early 2006, ushering in his downfall.


jail time for Thaksin's wife, potjaman.

karma.

So now Thaksin not need to hide his mistress any more

lol, boosh!

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A Thai court has found the wife of ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra guilty of tax evasion and has sentenced her to three years in prison.



Thursday's long-awaited ruling strikes a major blow to Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

He has long denied any wrongdoing by his family in the tax case and several other corruption cases against him.

A Thai court official said Thaksin's wife was released on 5 million baht ($149,000) bail.

Pojaman is widely expected to appeal.

Thaksin accompanied his wife to Bangkok's Criminal Court, where several hundred supporters clapped and cheered the family's arrival. The couple's three children were also present.

The 51-year-old former first lady, her brother and secretary face charges of evading millions of dollars in taxes in 1997 through a complicated transfer of shares in the family's flagship business that involved placing stocks in the name of one of the family's maids.

All three have pleaded innocent.

Pojaman, known for her taste in designer clothes and coifed hair, wore a blue blouse and pearl necklace for the court appearance. She and Thaksin did not comment to reporters.

More than 300 police were deployed in the area amid concerns of possible protests by both Thaksin's supporters and opponents.

Thaksin was ousted after being accused of massive corruption and abuse of power during his two terms as prime minister. Four corruption cases have been filed in the courts against Thaksin, two others against his wife, and three cases against two of his children. Many others are under investigation.

Thursday's case centers on a 1997 transfer of shares in Shinawatra Computer, the company that later became Shin Corp. -- Thailand's biggest telecommunications company -- before it was sold in 2006 to a Singapore state-owned company for $2.2 billion.

The share transfer was valued at 738 million baht -- about $22.2 million at the current exchange rate -- and deemed tax-free. The family had listed the deal as a transfer of shares carried out within the stock market, which is exempt from capital gains taxes.

After Thaksin's ouster, an investigation was launched into the deal that prompted the family to change its story.

Pojaman, through her lawyer, said she bought the shares from a family maid and transferred them to her adopted brother, Bhanapot Damapong, as a gift, which under Thai law is not taxable.

Thailand's Assets Examination Committee determined last year, however, that a check issued to the maid was later deposited in a new bank account belonging to Thaksin's wife.

The committee said Pojaman and her brother had misrepresented the nature of the transaction to avoid paying taxes and should pay back taxes of about 546 million baht ($16.4 million). Thaksin was not implicated in the tax evasion case.

Thaksin was known to have transferred shares in Shin Corp., his telecommunications empire, to his maid, chauffeur, relatives and others to shed holdings before becoming prime minister in 2001 to skirt conflict of interest laws.

Thaksin was deposed after months of street demonstrations in Bangkok demanding he step down because of the allegations. He returned to Thailand earlier this year after his political allies in the People's Power Party set up a coalition government.





Here is the same news taken from CNN and check this out. It said she bought the share from her maid???? And somehow her maid use a check that was paid to her to open a bank account but under the name of the share buyer, Potjaman. Man, I'd love to have a maid like that. Another interesting story, the same share that worths only 738 million bahts in 1997, somehow increases its value up to ten billions in 2007.

Thaksin wife

i'm sure she enjoys it. they have like 3 children.

Only 3 years for $16.3 mil? That's a freaking good trade.

I admire thais in protecting their own rights.

Why would you want to admire small number of people that think that the majority of their countrymen are too stupid to pick their own leader so only the rich and educated should be allowed to do so?

um i'm sorry i thought that it's done by the masses.

THAI POLITICS

The PAD has become Thailand's international embarrassment

MATTHEW B ARNOLD

Thailand has been in the international news headlines extensively this past week because of the PAD's latest attempt to remove an elected government from power. Being resident in London, it has been interesting for me to read the news about Thailand's latest bout of political instability, given Thaksin Shinawatra's exile here.

The international press has had the challenging task of explaining to a foreign audience why Thailand is once again in political turmoil. Indeed, why it is that a protest movement called the People's Alliance for Democracy has taken over the prime minister's office in order to push demands that democracy actually be rolled back to the point whereby only 30% of the parliament is elected.

Most of the international press' explanations for the crisis have done a pretty good job summarising the situation, describing the background of the present crisis being the PAD protests that started in early-2006 and ultimately provoked the military coup that deposed Mr Thaksin.

Needless to say, foreign readers can only but be left confused by Thailand's politics. The crux of the confusion is why a country that has had a string of successful elections despite a history of military coups, including one just two years ago, is again seeing political upheaval provoked by a civilian group demanding the effective return to non-democratic government and the disenfranchisement of the rural majority.

This goes against the general progression towards democracy in much of the world, notably as witnessed by Thailand's own December 2007 elections, and contrasts starkly with the stability of neighbouring Indonesia's modern democracy and commendable attempts ongoing in Malaysia to push its democracy forward.

As the current PAD protest descends into a stalemate with the Samak government, the problem for Thailand is that the PAD's prominence to its political processes is a damning embarrassment for the country. It leads foreign governments and public to question the political gravitas of a country that has military coups with smiling soldiers waving flowers, followed by protesters with pro-democratic names storming government buildings attempting to overthrow a government that has been democratically elected.

There is obviously more substance to Thailand's political processes, but observers from afar can only reasonably be left wondering what Thailand is doing to itself when a self-righteous reactionary group like the PAD can take such a definitive role in its national politics.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej was right to rhetorically ask of his fellow parliamentarians in the special debate on the PAD-provoked crisis: ''Don't you feel ashamed? Our image as far as the rest of the world sees us will be destroyed.'' If the PAD succeeds, this will be because the world will see that Thailand's democracy is so shallow and its institutions so weak that it is incapable, and indeed unwilling, to prevent a small minority of maniacally aggressive citizens from bringing the country to a halt and dictating what political outcomes are acceptable or not.

Indeed, the current empowerment of the protesters leads one to believe that the precedent of the PAD's 2006 efforts and possible success in 2008 will leave the PAD as a ''fifth column'' in Thailand's democracy _ raising its proverbial hand to determine what governments pass its test and otherwise resorting to protests to hijack the country.

One of the ironies for the PAD, however, is that they have done much to rejuvenate Mr Thaksin's image abroad, especially in Britain. When questions are raised with his application for political exile in the UK, Mr Thaksin's image can only be helped when people here ponder: ''If these protesters are his enemies, maybe he really isn't so bad!''

It had been easy for some of the UK press to label him as a corrupt billionaire with authoritarian tendencies. Yet, this has been harder to maintain when the PAD is blatantly trying to force another government from power and demanding the end to full democracy in Thailand.

Mr Thaksin's reputation is inherently strengthened by the PAD's current efforts because, after all, he too had suffered such attacks.

Thailand already made a mistake once before about the PAD. Back in 2006, too many people were willing to give a ''civil society'' actor with an altruistic name the benefit of the doubt. It should be no surprise that the PAD should reassert itself in the same destructive manner given its previous successes. The only ''good'' thing about the PAD this time around is that they are being more honest, making it clear that they aren't for democracy at all and want to curtail suffrage in the country and seek an effectively non-democratic form of government.

Ultimately, is Thailand waiting for the world to see still another government succumb to undemocratic means? It would be a disaster for the country's international reputation to see, yet again, a government falling to a self-righteous mob of protesters pushing the country away from democracy. Even those who disdain Mr Thaksin, and Mr Samak as well, should be troubled by the PAD entrenching itself as the final judge of Thailand's democratic political outcomes. Indeed, they should be embarrassed by the PAD. The real shame is that while Thailand had such a turbulent period in 2006 and 2007, its international reputation as a stable, democratising nation had greatly improved since the last elections. The more the PAD asserts itself, the more Thailand will be in international headlines and the more it will suffer for it.

Matthew Arnold has been a visiting scholar at Chulalongkorn University.

for Pojamarn's case, It's happened for 10 years long long long time ago before her husband came into politics, It's have no guilty until Thaksin have a problem with Gen.Prem.

The followings are the comments to M. Arnold's article:

General news >> Friday September 05, 2008

Web www.bangkokpost.com
PostBag

Not a genuine govt

Mr Arnold's plaintive essay (BP, Sept 3) about the PAD misses the forest for the trees. He rails against the possibility of the PAD taking down his so-called "democratically elected government".

What government are you referring to, Mr Arnold? Yes, Thailand held a democratically run election, but what got elected wasn't a government, it was a clique of self-interested men who have shown no desire in governing and have done virtually nothing since assuming office.

They brazenly admit that their primary job is to undermine the constitution and the laws so as to subvert any chance of bringing former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to justice.

Developing public policies and doing the people's work doesn't even occur to these benchwarmers; most of them have never thought that way, seeing politics as merely a way to line their pockets with graft. To them getting elected is their only job; governance is left to bureaucrats while they rob the taxpayers blind.

So I put it to you and everyone fretting over the PAD: how can they be accused of trying to overthrow a government when no genuine government exists?

The public already knows this, which is why the PAD has got as far as it has, despite the understandable discomfort many of us feel about their tactics.

PAUL BRADLEY

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PAD not 'militant'

It is very disconcerting to see a headline on the Bangkok Post website referring to the PAD as "militants". Such misuse of the word is beyond irresponsible, and will have a long and negative effect on the country.

"Militant" behaviour is associated with beheadings and violent killings. It is out of line to cast the PAD in such a light, as they have been protesting peacefully for 100 days.

What about the UDD, the red-clad pro-government group with their history of extreme, violent and confrontational behaviour? One cannot forget how they came charging at the peaceful PAD rally in Udon Thani, armed with clubs, knives and axes.

We've also seen pictures of the weapons the UDD were carrying when they instigated the clash at Makkhawan Bridge, which allowed PM Samak to declare a state of emergency in Bangkok.

That night the PAD medical station helped UDD and PAD members alike. Is that "militant" behaviour?

CAROLYN
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Naive foreign reporters

In his speech at Government House in front of an excited crowd of thousands, Mr Sondhi went on to chastise foreign journalists for wasting his time in several interviews by repeatedly asking, "Why is the PAD doing this?" and naively quipping that "Samak was elected by the people".

Mr Sondhi amusingly explained that foreign journalists simply don't understand Thai politics. The truth is, Thailand is not a core country in world affairs, so journalists posted here are probably not very well seasoned.

To all foreign journalists: please respect your profession and start engaging in informative and insightful journalism, because we are all tired of reading the same over-simplistic sensationalistic garbage in the foreign press.

ALEX RUIZ

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Clouds of confusion

In his article published Sept 3, Matthew Arnold says that the foreign readers, particularly those in the UK, may be confused by the current political situation in Thailand.

While I agree with much of what was written, may I suggest that if an interested foreign reader wants to clear the clouds of confusion, he should not just rely on his local news source but turn to the two Bangkok-based English newspapers which are published on the internet.

They will, over the course of the last few months, have gleaned two other crucial facts which have been sloppily omitted from this ex-visiting scholar's piece.

These are: a) consideration whether as he states the rural majority is indeed "enfranchised" or is vote buying still prevalent; and b) also take into account the attempts of the current administration to whitewash legal rulings relating to the banned TRT members and the cases currently awaiting a legal decision against the ex-prime minister. A far more balanced opinion would be arrived at if these last two are factored in.

LEM MORGAN

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your actor it fu-king $hit ! สัดเอ๊ยหน้าตาดารามิงยิ่งกว่าตัวเหี้ยอีกไอสัดกุพึ่งเคยเห็นว่ะสัตจีงไรชชิบหาย