A Thai court this morning cleared a now-infamous construction tycoon, his wife and an associate of illegally possessing ivory.
In a ruling delivered at about 9:30am, the Criminal Court of Thailand ruled that Premchai Karnasuta and Khanitta Karnasuta, both 65, along with 71-year-old Wandee Somphum, were not guilty as the ivory in their possession was legal.
That was good news for Premchai, who’s already been sentenced to 34 months in jail for a slew of crimes – including bribery, illegal possession of firearms, killing a protected pheasant and conspiring to poach wildlife. He remains free while those convictions are on appeal.
The ivory was discovered after officers raided the Karnasuta mansion following his arrest early last year for suspected poaching. Premchai was taken into custody in a wildlife sanctuary at a campsite where weapons and several carcasses – including a rare black panther that had apparently been partially cooked into a soup – were recovered.
The three defendants had said Khanitta inherited the tusks from her mother in 1987 and that they had been properly declared back in 2015 in accordance with the Elephant Ivory Tusks Act.
The court ruled that it found those statements to be true and dismissed the case. The confiscated ivory will also be returned.
After the verdict, the defendants immediately left the court without speaking, according to reporters there.
Premchai, the managing director of Italian-Thai Development, the largest Thai construction firm that built many of the kingdom’s roads and infrastructure, was arrested February 2018 in Kanchanaburi province’s Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary.
He was detained with three others — two men and one woman — after rangers found guns and animal carcasses, including a Kalij pheasant, a red muntjac (barking deer), and the remains of the black panther at their campsite, along with hunting rifles.
Unlicensed firearms and two pairs of ivory tusks were found during the raid days afterward. The case ignited public fury and bitter suspicions that a man as powerful and wealthy as Premchai would never be held to account under Thailand’s two-tier justice system.
Premchai was sentenced in March to a total of 16 months in prison but was let off the hook for slaying the black panther. The possession of the panther carcass was instead pinned on the men who took care of Premchai’s camp in the sanctuary.
Oh, did we mention the bribery? Premchai got a year in prison on bribery charges in May. Then in August, he was sentenced to another six more months behind bars.
All of his convictions are, of course, under appeal, a process that can notoriously drag on for years during which defendants often remain free.
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