An additional charge of colluding to bribe officials will be pressed against construction magnate Premchai Karnasuta and also against his driver Yong Dodkrua in the Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary poaching case.
Pol Maj Gen Kamol Rianracha, commander of the Counter Corruption Division, said yesterday police had called in Mr Premchai and Mr Yong to answer the charge next Monday at the divisional office.
The new charge follows the third interrogation of Wichien Chinawong, chief of the Western Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, at the division on Wednesday.
Mr Wichien is the senior official who arrested Mr Premchai and his three hunting companions on Feb 4.
Mr Yong, 65, had asked officials to let Mr Premchai go and accept a bribe, according to Pol Maj Gen Kamol. "Earlier, Mr Premchai was charged with bribery but he will also face this new charge because the probe indicates he colluded with Mr Yong in offering to bribe authorities," he said.
"According to Mr Wichien's accounts, it is obvious the group offered camping paraphernalia to the officials in exchange for freeing them," Pol Maj Gen Kamol said.
According to earlier reports, Suppakit Prommee, one of the officials who arrested Mr Premchai, Mr Yong and the two others, recorded a conversation of Mr Yong negotiating with Jitti Sawatsai, an official at the forest, about a possible bribe.
On Wednesday, police charged Mr Premchai, president of Italian-Thai Development Plc, with bribing state officials, having unlicensed weapons and being in illegal possession of the carcasses of protected wildlife.
Mr Premchai and his three companions have been charged on nine counts relating to the poaching of protected animals at the world heritage-rated sanctuary in Thong Pha Phum district of Kanchanaburi.
Investigators have already charged Mr Premchai with trying to bribe state officials who detained him in a no-camping area of the sanctuary.
The 63-year-old businessman and his three companions were arrested at their campsite on the night of Feb 4. They were found in possession of the butchered carcasses of nine protected wild animals.
The dead animals included an endangered black Indochinese leopard, its pelt riddled with bullet holes, and what were initially said to be a Kalij pheasant and protected barking deer, but later identified forensically as a silver pheasant and a wild boar.
Meat and bones from the leopard were found in a stew pot at the campsite.
They also had three long-barrelled guns, including a shotgun and ammunition.
Besides Mr Wichien, investigators on Wednesday also questioned other three witnesses: Mr Suppakit, Mr Jitti and Damrong Moonsan, legal officer at senior professional level at the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation.
Pol Maj Gen Kamol said investigators would treat the testimony of Mr Wichien and Mr Jitti as primary evidence while the audio clip would serve as secondary evidence. Both officials were required to confirm messages transcribed from the clip, he said.