Move Forward Party MP Jirat Thongsuwan says he will appeal his one-year suspended jail sentence for defaming a former senior defence ministry official in connection with state procurement of fake explosive detectors.
The Criminal Court also fined Mr Jirat 100,000 baht after finding him guilty of falsely accusing ACM Tharet Punsri, a former air force chief-of-staff who went on to serve as deputy permanent secretary of the ministry, of being the chairman and shareholder of a company that supplied the infamous GT200 bomb detectors to the military.
The Chachoengsao MP made the accusation during a no-confidence debate on July 20, 2022 against cabinet ministers in the government of Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha. ACM Tharet was not a cabinet member.
Mr Jirat also identified ACM Tharet as a major figure in the 2006 coup led by then-army chief Gen Sonthi Boonyaratkalin that toppled the Thaksin Shinawatra administration.
ACM Tharet told the court that Mr Jirat’s allegations were baseless and tainted his reputation. He insisted he had nothing to do with the bomb detector company. He neither held the senior chairman’s post nor had shares in the firm.
In addition to the suspended jail term and the fine, the court ordered Mr Jirat to pay 500,000 baht in damages to ACM Tharet and publish an apology in three newspapers for five consecutive days.
Mr Jirat later posted on his X account that he has appealed the ruling and added the hashtag: “An injustice is infuriating”.
The MP is also facing a complaint for evading mandatory military conscription. He acknowledged the charge on May 8.
The GT200 was marketed by a British company as a “remote substance detector” and sold to a number of countries. Fourteen Thai government agencies, most of them in the military, were estimated to have spent a total of 1.4 billion baht on the units between 2004 and 2009.
Suspicions about the GT200 and related devices arose when tests by the National Science and Technology Development Agency found they did not contain any electronic components.
The devices were subsequently exposed as little more than “divining rods”.