The Supreme Court has rejected appeals by a banker and a property developer, two of the 27 defendants convicted of being involved in the Krungthai Bank loan scandal during 2003-04, effectively bringing the decade-long case to an end.
The case involved the extension of 10.05-billion-baht loans by the state-owned bank to subsidiaries of real estate developer Krisdamahanakorn (KMN) during the Thaksin Shinawatra government.
The court upheld the convictions made on Aug 26 last year by the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office-Holders which sentenced Pongsathorn Siriyodhin, senior executive vice-president at Krungthai, to 12 years in prison and ordered Krisdamahanakorn along with another two defendants to return a combined 10 billion baht to the bank.
The decision was made at a plenary meeting of some 170 Supreme Court judges and was published in the Royal Gazette on Monday.
At the meeting, the judges ruled that the two defendants failed to produce new evidence in their appeals and what they had submitted was merely an argument to the evidence examination of the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office-Holders.
Therefore, their pleas failed to meet the court’s criteria for appealing the case.
Pongsathorn and Krisdamahanakorn, the 5th and 20th defendants in the case, are among 27 people and private firms accused of malfeasance in violation of Section 157 of the Criminal Code, the law on offences committed by officials of state-run agencies, the Commercial Banks Act, the Securities and Exchange Act, and the Public Companies Act.
Among the defendants in the case, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was the prime minister at the time of the loan approvals, was named as the first defendant. The court did not make a ruling on his case because he is in self-exile overseas, and issued a warrant for his arrest so he could be brought to stand trial.
Nineteen defendants were handed down prison terms ranging from 12 to 18 years.
Among those convicted were former KTB president Viroj Nualkhair and former bank chairman Suchai Jaovisidha, who were both sentenced to 18 years in prison for malfeasance.
Besides Thaksin, the defendants included bank executives, senior credit executives, credit and risk analysts, the private firms involved, and representatives of the private firms.
In the indictment filed by the Office of the Attorney-General in June 2012, Krisdamahanakorn was not eligible to receive any more loans under the debt rehabilitation agreement. However, KTB eventually approved loans to the company's affiliates, including 500 million baht to RK Professional and 9.9 billion baht to Golden Technology Industrial Park.
The court’s decision has brought an end to the KTB bank loan saga. Pongsathorn is among the 10 former KTB executives and other defendants found guilty in the case. The other defendants have served their terms at the Bangkok Remand Prison and the Central Women Correctional Institute since the court’s ruling last year.