The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a motion seeking a retrial for a deaf man who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder nine years ago.
Suebphong Sripongkul, spokesman of the Court of Justice, said the Sing Buri Provincial Court read the Supreme Court's ruling not to retry Patsakorn Singki's case for murder in Sing Buri's Bang Rachan district in 2008.
The court argued that Patsakorn did not have sufficient evidence indicating he could be innocent, saying new evidence could have been doctored or amended as it was presented to the court a long time after the incident.
Apart from that, the new witnesses he had found were not at the scene of the crime.
In 2014, Patsakorn's parents petitioned to Justice Ministry, claiming their son was a scapegoat in the case. The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) stepped into re-investigate the case and found "new evidence", leading the DSI to arrest a suspect who they believe was the real culprit.
With the help of the ministry, Patsakorn lodged a motion seeking a retrial to the Sing Buri Provincial Court after he was convicted on the murder charge by the Supreme Court, which handed down a 20-year jail term.
The Sing Buri Provincial Court later knocked back the retrial bid and forwarded the motion to the Court of Appeal Region 2 which in May the same year ordered the preliminary court to hold a witness hearing to consider whether the case should be retried.
After the witness hearing in 2015, the appellate court accepted the retrial petition under the Retrial of Criminal Case Act the same year.
In March last year, the lower court also submitted the hearing result to the Supreme Court which decided Tuesday not to retry the case.