THAMANAT JOURNOS AWARDED

MEDIA: The Sydney Morning Herald journalists who reported on the criminal record of Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives Capt Thamanat Prompow, who was jailed in Australia, have won an award for their investigation.

Among 33 categories, Michael Ruffles and Michael Evans were named the 2020 NRMA Kennedy Awards’ Winners for Outstanding Court Reporting.

The Australian excellence in journalism winners’ list was announced on Friday night.

For an article published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in September last year, the reporters revealed that Capt Thamanat, who went by the name 2nd Lt Manat Bophlom at the time, spent four years in a Sydney jail in the 1990s after pleading guilty to his part in trafficking 3.2 kilogrammes of heroin.

After initially denying being jailed in Australia, Capt Thamanat’s version of events shifted several times after Sydney court files revealed the extent of his involvement in the heroin-trafficking operation. He claimed in parliament to have been a witness in “state-sponsored accommodation” and, during a censure motion he survived earlier this year, forcefully declared he was arrested with flour, not drugs.