AS FORMER teacher Jomsap Saenmuangkhot yesterday continued to maintain her innocence, witnesses in the fatal hit-and-run accident that ended in her imprisonment and eventual release have contradicted information that police said proved her guilt.

Jomsap is currently seeking a retrial after being released on a royal pardon in April 2015. Witness hearings are scheduled to be held from February 8-10.

Jomsap yesterday urged authorities to help to clarify the hit-and-run case so she could get her life back.

She recalled that she was summoned by Na Don Police Station investigators at the time and accused of driving a green Isuzu ABZ pickup truck with the licence plate “Bor Khor 56 Sakhon Nakhon” and running over 75-year-old bicyclist Lua Phorbumrung in Nakhon Phanom’s Renu Nakhon district. However, her pickup was a bronze-coloured Toyota Mighty X truck, she said.

She claimed that while police was questioning her, the part in a report which identified the driver as a man was erased and replaced with “woman”. She said she had raised the issue but the investigator ignored her.

Yesterday, Thong-res Wongsricha, 51, an eyewitness to the 2005 crime, swore on sacred beings, especially Phra That Phanom, that she had spoken the truth when she testified in court that a heavyset man wearing a black long-sleeve shirt and leather shoes was behind the wheel of vehicle that killed Lua in Nakhon Phanom.

She told The Nation that she and her neighbour Thassanee Hanphrayak saw the crash from 30 metres away as they and some friends were riding motorcycles behind the vehicle. She was riding pillion on Thassanee’s motorcycle and was unsure if the vehicle was a pickup truck or a sedan, she said.

She recalled that when she and Thassanee went to court, she walked past Sap Wapi – the man who later confessed to be the real driver of the pickup – and noticed that he was a heavyset man. However, she said she was asked in court only if the driver was male or female, to which she replied it was a man.

Amid the dispute over who was behind the wheel, Lua’s daughter Phaengsri Phorbumrung, 60, yesterday said she had forgiven whoever had caused her father’s death. She said the family had collected Bt170,000 in compensation money for Lua’s death but she wasn’t sure who paid it.

Another witness who provided conflicting information was Mukdahan’s Muang district resident Ubol Chaiyaban, 64. He told The Nation that he had bought the truck with licence plate number “Bor Khor 56 Mukdahan” in late 2004 and did not lend it or drive it to Nakhon Phanon, where the accident occurred. Jomsap’s supporters claim that Sap drove the vehicle in the fatal collision.

Ubol said he did not know Sap but saw Sap’s name in the car registration book. He said he did not re-register the vehicle in his own name, as the truck was old and for farm use only.

“It’s impossible that this truck was involved in the March 11, 2005 crash because it had been with me since I bought it in late 2004,” he said. He cited neighbour Prasian Thongmaha as a witness that he had bought the pickup from former village headman Niran Thoonkaew for Bt33,000.

Ubol said he also renewed the truck’s tax and insurance at the Mukdahan Land Transport Office on February 21, 2005. As the truck often broke down and was too costly to repair, he had sold it to a scavenger for Bt15,000 in 2008.

Ubol said that later a man in his 30s, who said his friend had been jailed for a hit-and-run case, had asked him to help locate the pickup’s document, but Ubol told him the document was given to the scavenger who had bought the truck.

Ubol was identified as The Nation followed a source’s information that Sap – who was believed to have hidden the pickup in his sugarcane plantation and later sold it to a scavenger for Bt20,000 – actually sold it to a villager in Tambon Kham Pla Lai.

Meanwhile, the Union for Civil Liberty yesterday issued a statement calling for the national police chief to provide justice to people seeking a retrial such as Jomsap.

The group said that police seemed to be upset with the move and had even warned those seeking to prove Jomsap’s innocence that they could face a charge of filing false information.

Police should support people if they have new evidence to prove their innocence and let the court decide, rather than issue such intimidating comments, they said. They also urged police to provide protection and assist in finding and verifying evidence to set a good standard to society.

Police Inspector-General Pol General Panya Mamen, however, insisted police had found evidence suggesting a network was seeking to benefit from Jomsap’s case. He explained Jomsap had a right to seek a retrial. But if a group sought to benefit from such a move by violating the law, police had to act.