The Appeal Court on Tuesday issued a warrant for the arrest of former Democrat Party MP Pracha Phothipipit, alias Kamnan Sia, after he failed to show up to hear its ruling on a land encroachment case.
Pracha, a former MP, and his wife Khemporn Tangjaiyen have been charged with encroaching on and occupying about 50 rai land in Bo Pholy district of Kanchanaburi province. The land belongs to the Finance Ministry's Treasury Department and has been in the care of the army for official use.
According to the lawsuit against them, the two had illegally encroached on and cleared the land to build roads, houses, shelters for workers and pens for livestocks between Nov 29, 2001 and Feb 8, 2002 in violation of the Land Act.
The Criminal Court on March 24, 2015 sentenced the couple to 17 years each in jail. The jail sentence was commuted by one-third to 11 years and four months.
The two defendants appealed. They were released on bail, pending the Appeal Court's judgement.
The Appeal Court was set to read its ruling today, but the two did not show up at the court.
The court found after examining records that Khemporn did not show up because she did not receive a court summons. But Pracha failed to show up without a reason.
The court therefore issued the warrant for Pracha's arrest and rescheduled the reading of the verdict for July 1, at 9am.
Earlier on Nov 18 last year, the Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Pracha after he failed to show up to hear its judgement in a bid-rigging case.
In the case, Pracha, Khemporn and two other persons were charged with preventing Wassadu Centre Company representatives from making a bid to sell steel cables to the Wang Yao reservoir project in Phetchaburi between 1999 and 2001.