PRINCESS GIVES BOOST TO HUNT INVESTIGATION TEAM
>> Princess Ubolratana has given her moral support to the authorities investigating the alleged poaching by the Italian-Thai Development (ITD) president.
Doubts have begun to grow concerning the propriety of the investigation given the high-profile nature of the suspect.
A follower of the princess’s NichaX Instagram account asked what people should do in the wake of the incident in Kanchanaburi. She replied: “[We should] give moral support to all officials to prevent them from being bullied.”
“We have to raise awareness that no one has more privilege than anyone else. Don’t forget that this country belongs to all Thai people, not particular individuals.”
ITD president Premchai Karnasuta, 63, together with three workers from the giant construction firm, was arrested last Sunday in Thungyai-Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary after they were found in possession of the carcasses of wild animals, including that of a rare black panther.
Deputy Kanchanaburi police chief, Phunsak Prasoet, who is leading the investigation team, vowed yesterday he will not be swayed by the position of Mr Premchai.
“I’m not worried at all, because the probe is based on the evidence,” he said.
Pol Col Phunsak expects Mr Premchai and the other three suspects will be summoned for further questioning this week.
The four, temporarily released on bail, are facing several charges including bribing state officials.
Police have also summoned Mr Noppadon for questioning but have been unable to locate him, said Pol Col Thatphum Charuprat, deputy chief of the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division.
Meanwhile, the Immigration Bureau is tightening inspections at Thai-Myanmar border checkpoints for fear Mr Premchai may flee overland.
Kanchanaburi immigration chief Pol Col Prasat Khemaprasit said if immigration police found Mr Premchai attempting to cross the border they would hold him.
In related news, the Kanchanaburibased Lat Ya military task force has sent officers to help Wichien Chinnawong, chief of the Western Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, conduct more thorough checks of visitors to the facility.
>> Sia Prem and three friends went out hunting for a new, black leopard throw rug and all we got was this disgusting news story.
Full disclosure. We’ve done some hunting, but are absolutely mystified over the thrill of shooting the last known rare black panther in Thailand, let alone gutting and spreading it out in preparation to make it an animal-skin rug.
Are there really people in Bangkok who would be exhilarated to take off their shoes and walk over that skin and ask for the whole story of how the Great Hunter faced down the cat and shot it in the head? And then ask, “Uh, could you get one for me, please?”
Police spent two days investigating, then went to court on Wednesday morning for a search warrant. Which they executed at the predictably flash mansion of Premchai “Sia Prem” Karnasuta at Soi Soonvijai 3. Officers said the only big-game trophies they found were two giant pairs of elephant tusks, properly documented.
They found and bundled up for lab inspection 40 long guns — rifles and shotguns — which (colour us cynical) seems just a number just a bit excessive for home defence. Still, if you’re living off government contracts you can afford them, so why not?
If you’re reading this, you presumably know about 1973, so we won’t rehash the Thungyai hunting party that led to the downfall of the Terrible Trio on Oct 14.
But 1973 was also the year of another momentous political soap opera, the US investigation of the Watergate scandal.
Watergate caused the world at large to realise an old, inside-politics saying: “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” In the US, it wasn’t the piddling dirty-trick break-in that forced Richard Nixon to resign as president, but his decision to try (unsuccessfully) to conceal every bit of evidence that tied the crime to the White House and a few of his appointees.
In Thailand 1973, it wasn’t the actual hunting trip or the killing of so many gaurs that wound up forcing Thanom, Prapas and Narong out of office and the country. It was their sheer arrogance at whitewashing their cronies’ wildlife killing, with lies so incompetent and bumptious.
Last week, the country was appalled at the arrest of Mr Premchai in a wildlife sanctuary with a skinned black panther, a beautiful and oh-by-the-way endangered species.
But what enraged the nation and assured that Mr Premchai will never again be invited into decent company was his total lack of remorse and repentance.
“I didn’t do anything” and “I don’t know anything” and “You can talk to my lawyer” and “I can get you guys anything you want, anything!” were not useful phrases that will raise his image with the public.
That was Error 1. It’s not the worst possible. Error 2 would be any defence by the top government, by word or deed..
The general prime minister took the most convoluted way imaginable to assure the nation he wouldn’t “do a Thanom” and spout Error 2 for his government’s leading contractor. So he wound up reassuring no one.
He said this. “No one can help, no matter how big they are, if they are proved to be in the wrong.” Well, yes. What people are looking for from the frequent employer of Mr Premchai is an assurance that Mr Premchai won’t receive very special, very top-level, very green-shirted help and interference to avoid the justice system that is charged with prosecution of wildlife laws.
Gen Chatchai Sarikulya, the sixth deputy prime minister, came close to violating Error 2, saying: “There’s no need to speculate here.”
That seemed a rather obvious attempt to warn people off attacking Sia Prem, because actually no one has speculated anything.
There’s no speculation involved in the arrest of the Italian-Thai Development president in an overnight camp that had hunting rifles and gutted, skinned animal remains.
That photo of the chief park warden confronting Mr Premchai, who is in full backpfeifengesicht mode — hold it to your ear and you can hear the sound of influence. “Do you know who I am?”
Sure enough, four days later, his buddies in brown back at Bangkok police headquarters want that park warden fired for letting Mr Premchai and friends enter the park without charge.
Is the world’s most important secondgeneration construction Thaicoon too dirty to fail? To ask the question is to answer it.