The Supreme Court on Monday found former Department of Special Investigation (DSI) chief Tarit Pengdit guilty of malfeasance and sentenced him to two years in prison.
The lawsuit was filed by former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban who accused Mr Tarit of unfairly pursuing murder charges against them for their role in handling the 2010 political violence.
Mr Abhisit was the prime minster while Mr Suthep was in charge of the now-defunct emergency resolution centre tasked with handling anti-government red-shirt protests in 2010.
The Criminal Court had dismissed the malfeasance case against Mr Tarit, but the Appeal Court then reversed the lower court’s ruling, sentencing Mr Tarit to two years in prison.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court found that Mr Tarit was aware he was not authorised to investigate Mr Abhisit and Mr Suthep because the case against the pair, who were political office holders, fell under the jurisdiction of the National Anti Corruption Commission (NACC). Mr Tarit, however, led the DSI investigators to pursue the charges despite this.
The court also said that there were grounds to believe the criminal charges were politically motivated and agreed with the Appeal Court’s guilty ruling and sentenced Mr Tarit to two years in prison. The court dismissed the case against three other defendants.
Mr Tarit was escorted by officials to Bangkok Remand Prison.
Ahead of Monday’s scheduled ruling, Mr Tarit submitted fresh petitions asking to withdraw his plea of guilty and enter a not-guilty plea and challenged the judges who considered the appeal. He also asked for another postponement of the ruling reading.
Last week he also asked the Supreme Court to seek a Constitutional Court ruling on whether Sections 157 and 200 of the Criminal Code, which deal with malfeasance, were against the charter in what was seen as a last-minute attempt to delay the ruling on his case. He had successfully sought a postponement of the ruling hearing nine times.
