Jarupan Woonsuwan was released by order of the Appeals Court Region 8 after serving almost seven years at Thung Song Prison, said deputy permanent secretary for justice Dussadee Arayawuth.

Jarupan filed a petition with the ministry, claiming she didn’t hire Thawatchai Phokaew to kill her husband for Bt80,000. After Jarupan passed a lie detection test, Thawatchai admitted to wrongly implicating her and was jailed for 18 months for the additional charge of providing false testimony, Dussadee said.

In fact, there is some doubt over whether the vote, due to take place at the Hua Mark Indoor Stadium, will even go ahead. Judging by the series of incidents that have occurred since the election was postponed, it appears wise for pundits to keep their own counsel. Nevertheless, if the vote does take place, the only certain thing is that a new man would take over the hot seat from outgoing president Worawi Makudi.

The provisional ban imposed by Fifa on the disgraced incumbent is the principal cause for the current malaise that has temporarily brought domestic football to a standstill.

Surely the 64-year-old Worawi is the man who was most dismayed by Fifa’s decision. Had Fifa not meted out the original 90-day suspension, which bars him from getting involved in all football-related activities domestically and internationally, the man who has been FAT president since 2007 would have won his fifth consecutive mandate by now.

Worawi’s lingering hope of retaining his post was snuffed out when world football’s governing body last month extended his suspension for another 45 days, making him ineligible to stand for re-election.

For a man who has a cunning knack of pulling off an escape act when encountering trouble, it is still premature to think that Worawi, who endured a sour relationship with fans for much of his time in the job, doesn’t have a trick up his sleeve.

Speculation was rife that Worawi was looking for his replacement before former national team coach Chanvit Pholcheewin turned up at the last minute with several figures who were close to the embattled incumbent to submit their applications for the executive posts of the association.

The 59-year-old Chanvit is one of six presidential candidates along with former national police chief Somyot Poompunmuang, former national manager Tawatchai Sajjakul, better known as “Big Hoy”, ex-FAT secretary-general Pinij Sasinin, Bangkok FC chairman Natthapol Teepsuwan and former FAT executive board member Pol Lt-Colonel Chaisap Tharat Rittem.

Nevertheless, many believe the battle for the presidency will boil down to a two-horse race between Somyot, who has the backing of the group opposed to Worawi, and Chanvit.

It, however, may not be as close a fight as people think, with the mo-mentum swinging firmly in Somyot’s favour following the re-staging of the election to find 30 representatives from third-tier Regional League clubs, who will be eligible to vote in Thursday’s poll. The 30 representatives elected last year were be-lieved to be the key voting base of Worawi’s camp so it came as no surprise when the camp tried hard to prevent any change to that line-up.

However, the Fifa-appointed normalisation committee tasked with overseeing the rearrangement of the presidential election stressed that it needed to re-stage the vote so it was in accordance with the newly-enacted rules.

Such was the sweeping change, only two clubs – Nara United and Nonthaburi FC – survived from the original 30. It signalled a change of wind that clearly deflated Chanvit, who appeared to raise the white flag.

There was more concern, though, about widespread speculation that an attempt had been made to do whatever it took to get the country suspended by Fifa. It followed an injunction request being filed at the Nakhon Si Thammarat Administrative Court to stop the vote find the 30 new representatives.

A similar case was lodged at the Khon Kaen Administrative Court after the vote was successfully staged on January 22. Fortunately, the court dismissed both requests because Fifa prohibits any party from taking a dispute concerning a national football association to ordinary courts.

Then there was a dispute in the regional league after the organisers of the league decided to bring forward the start of the season by a week, while some clubs were controversially not allowed to take part in the competition. That led to a petition by the majority of the third-tier clubs to seek justice for those clubs ahead of the season start today. The Sports Authority of Thailand tried its best not to let its attempt to solve the problem be seen as government interference so that Fifa did not suspend FAT.

Despite the FAT election slated to be held this week, no one can guarantee that there won’t be more twists and turns in the run-up to the poll.

It is among more than 100 cases of civil service scholarship recipients allegedly failing to repay debts that have been filed with the Administrative Court, Isara News Agency said. And this case discovery follows news that the university sued Thai Harvard School of Dental Medicine lecturer Dr Dolrudee Jumlongras for allegedly not repaying a scholarship debt.

Unlike Dolrudee’s case, guarantors in this recently-discovered case didn’t have to repay the debt on her behalf because the dentist’s parents accepted responsibility for the debt, which probably would result in them having to sell their home, Isara News Agency said.

Saying that Dolrudee wasn’t the first scholarship holder to be sued by Mahidol University, the news agency revealed that, in 2003, the university and the Office of Higher Education Commission sued another dentistry lecturer. The lecterer received fully paid leave to do master’s and PhD degrees in the US between 1995 and 2000 and failed to return to Thailand.

The university demanded she repay her scholarship debt and the salary she received during her 1,954-day leave and pay contract-breaching fines. The total amount is Bt22 million. She lost her civil service job in 2000.

The news agency said that dentist last contacted her parents in 2000 and disappeared.

Her mother petitioned a Bangkok court to consider her a missing person, resulting to the dentist being deemed presumed dead and the court ordering her family to pay her debt.

In September 2015, the Central Administrative Court found that the dentist may be avoiding returning to Thailand to avoid repaying the debt. Later that month, the court ruled that her family must repay the debt.

One of the dentist’s non-family guarantors told the news agency that they were lucky the lecturer’s elderly parents agreed to repay the debt and they were still unable to locate their daughter. They are in the process of the acquiring money, the guarantor said.

Meanwhile, Auditor-General Phisit Leelavachiropas has instructed legal experts to investigate using criminal code laws against Dolrudee on top of the civil lawsuit despite her no longer being in the civil service, Isara News Agency reported.

Phisit has also instructed officials to gather information on the number of civil service scholarships and the number of those who have failed to repay scholarship debts.

He also told officials to study the debt-collecting methods used so better methods could be formulated.

He said his office would this week announce measures to be used in the granting of scholarship.

The 6.4-magnitude quake struck in the middle of the night and as day dawned it revealed the destruction left behind in the city of Tainan, which bore the brunt of the damage.

An entire residential complex containing almost 100 homes toppled to the ground, lying on its side with twisted metal girders exposed.

A 10-day old baby girl and a 40-year-old man were pulled dead from the building, National Fire Agency officials said, with reports that around 30 more were still trapped inside.

A third woman died after being hit by a falling water tank at another site with no details immediately available of the other two deaths, the fire agency said.

Residents at the 16-storey felled Wei-kuan Building told of their terror as the quake hit.

“I saw buildings shake up and down and left and right,” said one resident.

“The first and second floor just collapsed and I smelt gas and water was leaking,” he told local channel SET TV.

Another man tied his clothes together to create a rope and lowered himself from his home on the ninth floor to the sixth floor below, Apple Daily reported.

One woman told how she had fought her way out of her home.

“I used a hammer to break the door of my home which was twisted and locked, and managed to climb out,” she told local channel SET TV, weeping as she spoke.

Rescuers have freed more than 200 people from the Wei-kuan building, with over 40 of them hospitalised.

Interior minister Chen Wei-jen said he feared there may be more people in the building than usual as family members would have returned to celebrate the Lunar New Year holidays next week.

“Exactly how many people were there when the quake hit was not immediately clear,” said Chen.

“We are concerned that most members of those families may have returned for the coming new year holiday.”

– ’Dazed and exhausted’ –

=========================

Officials said there were 256 residents registered as living in the building, which contained 96 apartments.

Dazed and exhausted residents stood outside the toppled building, watching rescue workers take survivors from the rubble and carefully hand them down ladders.

Television footage showed two small children wrapped in blankets being plucked from the building.

As Premier Chang San-cheng visited the disaster zone, one elderly woman wept, saying her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren were still trapped on the 15th floor, Apple Daily reported.

Cranes towered over the disaster zone with diggers trying to remove slabs of concrete.

Officials were unable to give an estimate of how many were still trapped as they scoured the building.

Separately, at least 30 people were earlier freed from another residential seven-storey building.

Across Tainan, 316 people had been injured, with more than 60 hospitalised, officials said.

The shallow quake struck at a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles) around 2000 GMT Friday, according to the US Geological Survey, 39 kilometres northeast of Kaohsiung, the second-largest city on the island and an important port.

The quake was initially reported as having a magnitude of 6.7, but was downgraded to 6.4.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami was not expected.

Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by earthquakes.

A strong 6.3-magnitude quake that hit central Taiwan in June 2013 killed four people and caused widespread landslides.

A 7.6-magnitude quake struck the island in September 1999 and killed around 2,400 people.

 

Dr Padet Pulwittayakij, one of the four guarantors for Dr Dolrudee Jumlongras, revealed in aFacebook post on Thursday night that Dolrudee, who broke the scholarship conditions to work in Thailand and refused to pay back the scholarship money, is being investigated by the Ombuds Office, after email complaints against her were sent to the office.

“As many people have asked me, I knew from my source in the United States that there were requests that she be investigated by the Ombuds Office, which is the internal examination agency of Harvard Medical School,” Padet stated.

He also invited people, who sympathised with him, to submit a complaint via email about Dolrudee’s cheating to the office.

Padet also revealed that he has gathered the information from his side to send to Ombuds Office. “I’ll continue the lawsuit against her in the United States. I have received many help from Thai people there to find a good and cheap lawyer, so it will take some time. However, I insisted that if I win the case, I’ll take only the principle that I have paid, while I’ll donate all the interest,” he said.

According to its official website, the Ombuds Office has a duty to provide its visitors with a highly confidential and informal forum in which to help them to clarify their concerns, identify their goals and consider all of their options in managing or resolving their concerns. It deals with the issues that include work/learning environment and performance, fear of retaliation, professional misconduct, authorship, sexual harassment and discrimination.

In one of the emails to Ombuds Office, which was posted on Padet’s Facebook page, Melissa Brodrick, Ombudsperson of Harvard Medical School, stated that she had reported the issue to Harvard School of Dental Medicine without identifying the email sender.

Meanwhile, in the personal bankruptcy lawsuit case against Dolrudee, it was revealed that the attorney had already filed a lawsuit to the Bankruptcy Court on December 21, 2015 and the first court reading will be on March 14.

The indictment of the case stated that Dolrudee, the first defendant, has a Bt4.5 million debt with the first plaintiff, Mahidol University, and a Bt43 million debt with the second plaintiff, the Office of Higher Education Commission (OHEC), but the first defendant refused to pay her debt to both plaintiffs and she has no other properties to clear her debt.

Therefore, she can be sued as a bankrupt person.

Dolrudee was a former Mahidol University lecturer who received a conditional scholarship with OHEC to study at Harvard University.

However, she violated the scholarship terms to work in Thailand and also refused to pay back her scholarship money.

POLICE are on the hunt for a Spanish man believed to be involved in the murder of David Bernat, also a Spanish national, whose body parts were found in the Chao Phraya River a few days ago.

Initial investigation showed that the suspect, Artur Princep Segarra, received Bt37 million from Bernat’s account in a Singaporean bank, chief investigator Pol General Panya Mamen said.

Segarra later withdrew the money from ATMs in different locations in Bangkok and other provinces. The last withdrawal was made at 4pm on Thursday from a Kasikornbank ATM in Ayutthaya’s Wang Noi district, he said.

Last week, body parts were found washed up at the banks of the Chao Phraya in different locations, including Charansanitwong 42, in Nonthaburi’s Muang and Pak Kret districts, as well as in Pathum Thani province. DNA tests revealed that the body parts belonged to the same man, who was later identified as Bernat.

The body was identified following DNA tests and fingerprint matching after Bernat’s friends and family reported him missing when he failed to make contact with him for over a week.

Closed-circuit surveillance showed Segarra walking with a Thai woman, who was later identified only as Pranee.

Pranee later told police that she knew Segarra because she was a friend of his girlfriend Prisna and they used to live in a condominium on Rama 9 Road.

Police failed to find the suspect at the condo yesterday, but it is believed that Segarra is still on the run in Thailand.

CCTV images in many locations in Bangkok and Ayutthaya showed Segarra and Prisna withdrawing money from different ATMs, police said.

Gen Panya said it appeared that the main motive for Bernat’s murder might be robbery, adding that the suspect may have kidnapped the businessman for money and tortured him when he refused to hand over a ransom.

Bernat might have been killed and dismembered when the Singapore bank refused to allow transactions of more than Bt20 million, he said.

The investigation chief also said that Segarra could be part of a gang made up of no less than two but no more than 10 people, adding that members were probably Spaniards but Thais may also have played some role, such as driving or withdrawing money.

Panya said he did not think Bernat was involved in any underground activities that lead to his death.

 

This remark came from Dr Bindu Lohani, senior adviser to the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) president and former vice president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Dr Lohani spoke at the Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Seminar on “Technological Challenges and Opportunities in Addressing Climate Resilience Smart Cities” at AIT on Tuesday.

“Cities have to be made more liveable, smart, clean and green,” Dr Lohani said as he outlined the technological challenges faced in urban areas.

He said 80 per cent of GDP was generated in cities and that some 600 metropolises collectively contribute about 60 per cent of global GDP.

Quoting an ADB study, he said that 23 megacities—with a population of over 10 million—were contributing 14 per cent of global GDP, though this is expected to reduce to about 10 per cent by 2025.

“We need cities that are liveable, economically vibrant and progressive, environmental clean and smart,” Dr Lohani said. He also spoke of major challenges including that of urban poverty and the burgeoning investment requirements. The urban poor number 200 million and 30 to 50 per cent of them earn less than a dollar a day, he said. Massive investments to the tune of US$2 trillion were required, while public resources account for only half of the investments, he said.

The former ADB vice president also identified energy efficiency, renewable energy, conversion of waste into energy and carbon capture, sequestration as well as storage as key weapons to fight climate change. Huge investments were required to make infrastructure “climate proof”, in the form of retrofitting as well as designing competitive and “smart cities”.

Tuenjai, a former senator and activist working with hill tribes, said the NHRC suggested the solution to manage displaced people in Trat province and using it to handle the complex issue of displaced people across the country.

The Trat model includes: establishing a district committee to screen petitions from displaced people, setting up a provincial committee gathering members from the district with the most displaced people, arranging a one-stop-service event to help register displaced people, and seeking cooperation from nearby universities to help prepare documents before sending them to the district committee.

“I aim to use the solution that we find in Trat as a role model to tackle displaced people across the country. A temporary team would be set up to speed up the process for registering those people,” she said.

The solution was suggested and adopted during a conference on Wednesday held between the commission, Trat municipal and provincial administration officials.

About 6,000 people living in Trat province are unregistered. The displaced people could be divided into many categories, such as stateless, rootless and displaced. Most of them are found in Klong Yai, Muang and Bo Rai districts.

Bo Rai district chief Panuwat Puttagasorn said undocumented people in his district were migrants from across the country who came to Bo Rai about 50 years ago and mostly worked in the gem mine. However, the mine was closed 20 years ago and most chose to stay in the district. Yet they had never been surveyed or registered.

“People who live in Bo Rai district moved from across the country, while some were migrants from Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Therefore, it is hard to define who should be registered when everyone is mixed together,” he said.

Noi Buoythong, 70, moved to tambon Bor Ploy in Bo Rai when she was just 14. She was born in Kanchanaburi’s Thong Pha Phum district, but went to dredge for gems in Bor Ploy in a bid to have a better life. She was considered one of the “rootless” people, as she was unable to provide documents about her birth and could not get support from the government.

Noi told The Nation she has palsy in her right arm, so she can’t do much work like before and most of her income comes from her son. “It would be great, if I could have a citizen identification card. Then I could seek medical support and an elderly pension,” she said.

Sitichai Bouaykeaw, 39, is a descendant of migrant workers who moved from Kanchanaburi to Bo Ploy to mine for gems. He told The Nation his father and mother met in this town, where he was born and raised. He also has no birth documents, as he was delivered by a midwife, not in a hospital.

Instead of attending school, Sitichai worked as a gem miner with his family, so there were no school or work records about him. After the gem mine closed 20 years ago, his work has been limited to contract building – houses in Bor Ploy, as he is “rootless” person, unable to work in other areas.

“I want an identification card, so I can travel to other districts and do contracting elsewhere. While, I can only make Bt10,000 a month, I have a family – two daughters and wife. So, if I was a Thai citizen, I could save some money and have some medical benefits as well,” he said.

Angkana Aisiri collapsed on the balcony, apparently from suffocation, as her relatives prayed from below.

The balcony is on the sixth floor of the building that is owned by former Ranong senator Vikrom Aisiri. He has owned many businesses including the Andaman Club Hotel on Koh Son.

Angkana was the only death from the blaze, which broke out at about 10.30am. Eight people sustained injuries but survived. Three remained hospitalised yesterday.

One of the survivors, 46-year-old Chettha Nguan-soong, jumped from the third floor to escape the blaze.

Residents said the victims’ relatives made Chinese-style worship items on the third floor of their ten-storey home in the morning and then came down to the ground floor. Later, they noticed the building was on fire.

When Angkana appeared on the balcony on the sixth floor, her relatives loudly cried for help. Firefighters, however, had difficulty containing the blaze due to its height.

Located on Soi Narathiwat 18 of Bangkok’s Yannawa district, the building sits on a narrow road. Initially, just one fire truck could access it.

Other trucks had to park in front of the road, and firefighters dragged water hoses to the scene of the fire. Some climbed over nearby row houses to try and control the blaze.

By the time a fire truck with a rescue basket reached the scene it was too late to save Angkana.

After seeing Angkana collapse on the balcony, some of her relatives also fainted.

The Thai Police Aviation Division dispatched a rescue helicopter to facilitate rescue operations at the building.

The blaze resulted in nearby Maneerut Kindergarten School evacuating 350 students and asking parents to pick up students aged two to six.

Saranuchit Ngarmwilai, who was among the first batch of firemen to reach the scene, said the building apparently did not have a sprinkler system or any other fire-prevention system.

Yannawa District Office director Suthas Rujinarong said was now declared off-limits.

“Relevant officials will inspect the structure to determine if a demolition is needed,” he said.

An informed source said the building was about 30 years old and its fire-escape ladders fixed recently.

In the late afternoon, police arrested a volunteer rescue worker who allegedly stole a luxury watch, worth about Bt200,000 from the building during the fire. Chatchai Sirirojpanyakul, 40, was charged with theft.

 

AN ONGOING probe has found that people close to a big-name politician has been collecting “tea money” from all the shops in the Rong Kluea border market to facilitate a bribery network across Sa Kaew province.

A source at the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) disclosed the information yesterday, without naming any suspects.

Rong Kluea is one of the biggest wholesale and retail markets in the country. However, it is also rife with contraband products.

“Authorities have planned crackdowns several times but often the plans are leaked, allowing offenders to evade arrest,” the source said.

Pramual Khiewkham, secretary-general of Sa Kaew Chamber of Commerce, has shared similar information.

“Yes, entrepreneurs have to pay tea money at designated places and sometimes to collectors who have been sent to the market,’ he said.

Speaking on behalf of vendors at the Rong Kluea Market, Pramual said it would be best for all parties involved to find a solution together.

“I am not a vendor, but I see it as an economic engine for the province,” he said.

He also pointed out that though most vendors in the market were foreigners, largely Cambodians, they rented the stalls from Thais.

Earlier this week, DSI officials from Bangkok clashed with Cambodian vendors at the market after they tried to arrest a Cambodian for selling products without paying tax on the goods.

DSI director general Pol Colonel Paisit Wongmuang said yesterday he would go to Sa Kaew province next Tuesday to discuss on how to prevent intellectual property (IP) violations.

“We are working on the Sa |Kaew model,” he said.

In charge of this case is a committee on the prevention and suppression of IP violations, which has the DSI chief as its chairman and the Sa Kaew governor as its chief adviser.

“We will listen to opinions from 17 relevant agencies in Sa Kaew,” Paisit said. “We will also plan both short-term and long-term measures”.

After the measures were concluded, he said relevant officials would talk to Rong Kluea vendors to ensure that they understand how to avoid breaking the law.

In regard to legal action against Cambodians who injured Thai |officials and damaged state pro-perty during the clash, Thai police and immigration officials yester-|day closely checked Cambo-|dians going in and out of the country via the Aranyaprathet checkpoint.

So far, Thai authorities have been able to arrest just two offenders. They have already been sentenced to three months in jail.

In the wake of the clash, the |number of Cambodians entering Thailand via the Baan Klong Luek checkpoint has dropped by half. |More than half of the shops at the Rong Kluea market that belong to Cambodians are closed.