Court clears five senior monks of money laundering charges
Five former senior monks have been cleared of money laundering charges in connection with the temple fund embezzlement scandal, said a source.
The monks who attended a rite organised at Wat Sa Ket temple in Bangkok on Tuesday to reinstate them into the monkhood were Phra Phrom Sitthi, Phra Ratchakitchaphon, Phra Ratchauppasenaphon, Phra Sikhunaphon and Phra Khru Siriwihan, said the source. They were acquitted in the moneylaundering case and their money was returned to them after it was earlier frozen during an investigation.
Former auditor-general Pisit Leelavachiropas, in his capacity as a member of the Maha Chulalongkorn Rajavidyalaya University council, has previously confirmed that the monks had strictly adhered to rules and regulations while they were in jail. He added that police and public prosecutors hadn’t ordered the monks, who are at Wat Sam Phraya and Wat Sa Ket temples, to formally leave the monkhood, even though they were formally stripped of their robes. The judges still recognised them as monks and they had appeared in court as monks, not laymen. As soon as they were released on bail, they switched back to wearing their robes and resumed their roles at the temples, said the source.
The Appeal Court last month upheld an eight-month jail term, suspended for one year, for the former abbot of Wat Sam Phraya, Phra Phrom Dilok, over his alleged involvement in the temple fund embezzlement scandal. The former abbot, whose layman’s name is Uan Klinsalee, was found guilty by the Central Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct in March last year having aided state officials in committing malfeasance.
The charge related to the spending of a 3.5-million-baht budget set aside by the National Office of Buddhism (NOB) to finance the construction of temple buildings in 2014. The fund was, however, found to be part of an embezzlement scam involving NOB officials. The former abbot’s jail sentence, originally one year, was reduced to eight months, suspended for one year. He was also fined 8,000 baht. The court said he was a senior monk who had the authority to examine funding plans, so his claim that he was unaware the funds were illgotten was not credible.