The Central Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases has dismissed charges against forensic expert Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan in connection with the purchase of bogus bomb detectors between 2007 and 2009.
The case was filed by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), which decided last year to indict Khunying Porntip, the former director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science (CIFS), and nine others for malfeasance over the procurement of the notorious GT200 devices.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the court threw out the case on the grounds that Khunying Porntip had approved the purchase because the equipment was deemed necessary at the time to support the operations of officers in the three conflict-torn southern border provinces.
Dismissing the charge against four other defendants who were members of the procurement committee, the court said there was no solid evidence to substantiate the allegation that they had colluded with the vendors.
As for the five other defendants who were on the inspection and acceptance committee, the court cleared them because there were no certified experts and they had done their best to test the effectiveness of the devices.
Narong Polmart, a defence lawyer, said the court found no evidence of graft or an intent to evade procurement regulations, and dismissed all the charges.
Following the case dismissal, Khunying Porntip wrote on Facebook that she had been waiting for this day for 14 years.
She noted that the CIFS, a unit of the Ministry of Justice, had been singled out for initiating the purchase of the useless equipment, even though several security agencies and units of the armed forces had bought the devices earlier.
Khunying Porntip, currently serving as a senator, also criticised the NACC for not calling the accused to clarify the allegations which were considered extremely serious for state officials. She said the allegations had created a stigma.
Suspicions about the GT200 and related devices arose when tests by the National Science and Technology Development Agency found they did not contain any electronic components.
The GT200 was marketed by the British company Global Technical Ltd as a “remote substance detector” and sold to a number of countries for up to £22,000 each. Thailand is estimated to have spent 1.4 billion baht on the units.
The devices were subsequently exposed as little more than “divining rods” that lacked any scientific explanation for why they should work. The owner of Global Technical, Gary Bolton, was convicted in 2013 on two charges of fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison. Another Briton, James McCormick, was sentenced to 10 years and had some £8 million in assets seized with funds to go to some of the countries that were duped.
A bomb disposal officer uses a GT200 scanner in the hope of locating other hidden explosives after a blast in the southern province of Yala in November 2009. The Thai army bought 757 of the devices which turned out to have no value at all. Their British maker was sentenced to seven years in jail for fraud in 2013.