A joint panel of public prosecutors and anti-graft officials has recommended the indictment of popular Channel 3 news host Sorayuth Suthassanachinda for embezzlement in a case dating back nine years.
Mr Sorayuth's company, Rai Som Co, is accused of having cheated the Mass Communication Organisation of Thailand (MCOT) out of 138 million baht in advertising revenue for programmes his company produced on television Channel 9 in 2005 and 2006.
The joint panel also recommended that Rai Som Co and two other individuals be indicted along with Mr Sorayuth, said Santhanee Disayabut, deputy spokesperson at the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG). The panel is now drafting a suit to be forwarded to Attorney-General Trakul Winitnaiyapak for endorsement.
Ms Santhanee said she was uncertain whether the case could be sent to court within this year.
Sorayuth: Case dates back to 2005. (Bangkok Post file photo)
MCOT first brought the case to the police in 2007. They consulted the OAG, which decided that since the complaint involved a state enterprise, it should be forwarded to the National Anti-corruption Commission (NACC), which proceeded to investigate on and off for several years.
Mr Sorayuth has repeatedly denied the accusations.
In the interim, the anchorman won a judgement in the Administrative Court, which ordered MCOT to pay his company 49 million baht. The sum represented the value of excess advertising that MCOT sold but did not share with Rai Som under their contract, even while it was accusing Rai Som of concealing information about ads that it had sold.
Last month, the OAG decided, two years after receiving an investigative report from the NACC, that the evidence against Mr Sorayuth substantiated the original charges. It assigned a panel of prosecutors to discuss the case with officials of the NACC.
Prosecutors resolved to arraign Mr Sorayuth, Pichapa Iamsa-ard, an MCOT employee; Montha Theeradet, a director of Rai Som Co, and Rai Som Co.
In addition to being accused of embezzling 138 million baht from MCOT, Mr Sorayuth is accused of paying Mrs Pichapa, who was responsible for keeping records of commercials at MCOT, to conceal the record of actual income earned during the time that Rai Som was contracted to produce two programmes on Channel 9. The period in question ran from February 2005 to June 2006.
When MCOT began having suspicions that Rai Som was selling more commercial time, and thus earning more revenue than was being booked, it began its own review. It calculated that it was owed 138 million baht as its share of the money earned from the Rai Som-produced shows. With VAT and interest, the total amount due was 152.9 million baht, which Rai Som paid in August 2006.