jaidam

This Manas needs to be very carefully protected. There is precedence for anybody about to spill the beans against Shin to be murdered. Shipping Moo, Sae Daeng, Ekkeyuth making 3 for starters. It will be most boring if Manas is executed before he can sing like the proverbial canary.

For what it's worth, although a god-almighty waste of the courts time hearing these irrelevant character witnesses, they might be better off allowing their testimony. It's not as if there is a cat in hell's chance of her proving she was not head of the rice committee. It's a cold, hard fact that she was the head, at least in name. Allowing their testimony might slow the shin lovers monotonous drone of "politically motivated, unfair trial, kangaroo court" etc etc

This is a momentous and quite thrilling period in Thai history. A big fish, after losing her megabucks PR team, unable to flee the borders, will actually face trial, and Allah Inshallah will get the justice she so deserves.

I would have thought that being prohibited from owning a majority share in your business would put the dampers on "business friendliness". Invest 100% of the capital and then own a 49% share in your business, hooray!

The scheme was not "marred" by massive corruption. The scheme was started solely to buy an election and to enable the red elite billionaires(who pretended to be hard working poor folk, baulking against the establishment) to steal unprecedented amounts of taxpayers money. Marred by corruption suggests that the corruption was an unfortunate accident, which is blatantly false.

I would like to see this stolen 800 billion distributed among the farmers that unwittingly participated in the scam. Rather than carking around trying to get the BVI and Cayman, Montenegro etc banks to clarify the offshore Shin treasure haul, just seize and sell any and all Shin assets in Thailand. Cash,stocks,bonds, properties, wide-body jets, land, everything. I think the Shinawatras will be quite happy with such a deal, they have history in joyously bypassing the rule of law so long as others benefit, such as his war on drugs.

Instead of crying Oh the Shins Oh the Shins, take everything, Why not support the catching of those who actually were involved with the theft and resale and bogus numbers of tons or rice, ie millers and dealers, and call for their prosecution, that would be a balanced outcome rather than your suggestion.

Why not convict everyone who stole anything from the scheme? I have no problem with that. The person who introduced the scheme to buy votes, the person who claimed to be in charge, the one who appointed the various ministers that lied over and over about the funding etc. You know who I'm speaking of, dear Yingluck. Start at the top, ask her if she was merely incompetent or if she is a crook, because it can only be one or the other. Ask Kittirat if he was lying, over and over, when he said the funds were there for the farmers. The Shins were in this, created this, and you want to whitewash the entire thing so that they look like participants instead of creators, nice try.

The first 5 sets of people in your list, probably didn't get one baht out of the thing, but you think they are more worthy of punishment than miller and dealers who did?

Now I am all for political accountability, so by that token, I presume Blair and Brown should be thrown in the clink for runing the economy, Bush and Obama should be too, and the list goes on. Your political hatred is blinding you to the likely outcome that by the end of this, there will be little or no evidence that the top level of government profited personally at all from this, and that the money has been turned around in circles at local levels to fund their cronies.

So what do you think will be the reaction of the people if the only ones punished are at the top whilst the Merc and Ferrari driving local pooyais laugh all the way tot he bank?

"The first 5 sets of people in your list, probably didn't get one baht out of the thing, but you think they are more worthy of punishment than miller and dealers who did?"

You might want to email Forbes and tell them that Thaksin's brag that his govt sent him 30 billion baht since rice scam inception is a lie. Then we have Jatuporn's amazing amulet truck and Arisman(owner with his wife of Siam Indica- google the name in connection with the rice scam) and his new international airline fleet. So to recap, 800 billion baht of taxpayers funds have disappeared and a few redduns linked to the scam have become amazingly wealthy. Join the dots.

The stupidity that led to the scam is absolutely damning. Cast your mind back to when Thaksin dreamt it up. Did he not say that by Thailand withdrawing all rice sales for a few years will push up global rice prices and allow his rice scheme to turn a profit? Yes, he did. Was he roundly condemned at the time by all and sundry on TVF for such a ridiculous notion that was bound to be an unspeakable financial disaster. Yes, he was. Did a good few farmers commit suicide after realizing what had happened to them. Again, yes they did. Has Thailands rice industry been scuttled due to the scam? You betcha!

It's time to accept that this was no accident. It was borne out of greed, stupidity and a life of enjoying monopolies and corruption. Had the coup never ocurred we would not know the scale of the crime, but as it stands it looks like the general will unravel the money trail. Sorry if this investigation upsets you, but it is very much in the interest of all Thai citizens. You will just have to deal with it.

The scheme was not "marred" by massive corruption. The scheme was started solely to buy an election and to enable the red elite billionaires(who pretended to be hard working poor folk, baulking against the establishment) to steal unprecedented amounts of taxpayers money. Marred by corruption suggests that the corruption was an unfortunate accident, which is blatantly false.

I would like to see this stolen 800 billion distributed among the farmers that unwittingly participated in the scam. Rather than carking around trying to get the BVI and Cayman, Montenegro etc banks to clarify the offshore Shin treasure haul, just seize and sell any and all Shin assets in Thailand. Cash,stocks,bonds, properties, wide-body jets, land, everything. I think the Shinawatras will be quite happy with such a deal, they have history in joyously bypassing the rule of law so long as others benefit, such as his war on drugs.

I am quite surprised by these stories, one minute calling for an armed struggle and burn down BKK and once in jail they turn into mother Teresa

This story is similar to the one about the guy released from the Cambodian nick, reading that it sounded like they had locked up Gandhi...

If you knew anything about Sombat, or indeed the UDD, you probaly wouldn't have come up with the fatuous comment about calling for an "armed struggle" and "burn down BKK" but I suppose "they" are all the same to you.

Talk about revising history!! Did leaders of the UDD stand on stage and call for the burning of Bangkok? Yes they did. If you need to see the video evidence yet again I can post it, although it has been posted so many times that all but the dullest will remember.

Is it possible that the US government does not understand they have bankrupted their country, and made the US less relevant to world politics going forward than outer Mongolia ? When China recalls their loans, Barraco Barner will be hot on the blower to Prayuth(and other Asian leaders) begging to borrow some dosh. So he had better keep on the general's good side.

Very very interesting . . . given Thaksin's close relations with Cambodia/Hun Sen, I don't know why he couldn't have pulled this off a while back.

Are Hun Sen and Thaksin now family members after Thaksin married off his niece to the Cambodian elite? He didn't pull it off an early release as Veera fannying around on the border was drawing too much attention to the Shin/Sen oil and gas pact. We all know what happens to somebody when they inconvenience Thaksin.

You can tell quite a lot about somebody by the company they keep. Abhsist is rumored to be close to Boris Johnson, while Thaksin prefers to hang out and do business with ex-Khmer rouge Hun Sen, Fijian tribal strongman Frank Bananarama, and African dictators Robert Mugabe and Museveni It gives a sense of their democratic values and morals does it not?

Just to clarify, this is the genius that said since Thaksin was not physically in the country that he could not be guilty of organizing/sponsoring the violent insurrection and attempted incineration of Bangkok.

Did I miss in the OP where it said that Jatuporn must pay back this 68 million baht that he embezzled? It's a mad old world when talking about some stealing scrote is worse than the thief thieving.

If ever a country was in dire need of complete legalization of narcotics it would be Thailand. Irrespective of the benefits/drawbacks of the liberal Portuguese model, having a police force that is supposed to be suppressing the trade, actually organizing the drug importation, manufacture, distribution and also under the table fining of users is not going to solve anything. Be brave generals, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

Was I not reading on TVF that if a coup were to occur, the Isaanites would rise up on mass and violently overthrow the junta? But now, that the Shinawat mafia tentacles are being chopped off and the oh-so pursuasive local puuyai baans and kamnans are unable to intimidate and cajole the locals to vote for Shin, we are seeing a logical progression that people don't want the return of Shin. The mouse that never roared?

This cretin deserves every ounce of hurt that is coming his way. His post coup behaviour has been sickening. Nobody likes a bad winner, least of all me.

Go right ahead Khun Prayuth. The red violence has completely stopped and their weapons of terror are being systematically discovered. End of organized state corruption will eventually lead to more satangs finding their way to the rural poor. Police force overhaul should stop this organized crime gang distributing narcotics, facilitating prostitution and preying on the vulnerable. No doubt education and judicial reforms also on the way to the benefit of nearly everybody. It sounds like Prayuth could be the right choice for an interim PM.

Prayuth's final message to the scum he overthrew should be to retain Big Bobby Amsterdam to organize his publicity. Proving that it was all about the money after all.