NAKHON PHANOM: The Nakhon Phanom provincial court on Wednesday sentenced former teacher Jomsap Saenmuangkhot, 57, to eight years in jail for perjury in seeking a retrial in her fatal hit-and-run case.
There were eight defendants in the case. Five of them were given prison sentences.
Jomsap received eight years and her close friend Suriya Nualcharoen was sentenced to seven years and nine months. It was reported that he arranged the fake witnesses for Jomsap.
Thatsanee Hanphayak, one witness for Jomsap in her unsuccessful petition for a retrial, was sentenced to three years and seven months, and another witness Thongret Wongsricha three years in prison. Both had testified that Jomsap was not the driver of the car that hit and killed an elderly cyclist in 2005.
Niran Saenmuangkhot, Jomsap's ex-husband, was sentenced to two months in jail.
The court declined to suspend the sentences.
Jomsap's friends Saneh Suphan and Rotjana Chantharat and her niece Watsana Phetthong were acquitted. All eight defendants were acquitted on charges of unlawful assembly.
Jomsap's lawyer Pratheep Nualset said his client would seek release on bail to file an appeal.
In 2013, Jomsap was sentenced to three years and two months in jail for driving the vehicle that hit and killed cyclist Lua Phorbamrung, 74, in Renu Nakhon district of Nakhon Phanom on March 11, 2005.
After serving one year and six months in jail she received a pardon and was released.
She then filed for a retrial, claiming she was a scapegoat in the case and not the driver of the vehicle involved. It was the first case in the 34 years since the promulgation of the Retrial of Criminal Case Act. The Supreme Court dismissed the retrial petition in November 2017.
Afterwards police charged her and the other defendants with perjury and unlawful assembly.
Last year Sap Wapee and his wife Jan, two other witnesses for Jomsap, confessed of giving false testimony. The Nakhon Phanom court sentenced Sap to two years and 10 months in jail and his wife to one year and nine months. Sap had claimed he was actually the driver of the hit-and-run vehicle, not Jomsap.
