Top court upholds sentences over Ramkhamhaeng University blast

[webfact]

Top court upholds sentences over Ramkhamhaeng University blast

By The Nation

 

File photo: A bomb attack in front of Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok in 2013.

 

THE SUPREME Court upheld the guilty verdict and lengthy jail terms against four defendants for staging a bloody bomb attack in front of Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok in 2013.

 

The convicts were each sentenced to 33 years and four months in jail, fined Bt60, and ordered to pay compensation to their victims. 

 

The blast injured seven people, in addition to causing damage to property worth about Bt402,000.

 

Affaham Sa-a, Iqdris Sapator, Kamphi Latae and Ibroheng Vaemae – all residents of Thailand’s deep South – were convicted of planting a bomb inside a garbage bin in front of the university in Bangkok’s Bang Kapi district on May 26, 2013. 

 

Although they fled the scene, police found clues that helped track them. Recordings from CCTV showed a man – identified later as Kamphi – walk to the blast scene with a bag and return without the bag.

 

During the interrogation process, all four men admitted to the crime. 

 

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that evidence against the four defendants was solid, upholding the Court of Appeals’ sentence against them. 

 

In 2015, the Court of Appeals had convicted all four defendants of collusion to kill others with prohibited explosives, causing explosions that harmed others and caused damage to property, and attempted pre-meditated murder.

 

It imposed jail terms of 33 years and four months, a fine, and ordered the defendants to compensate their |victims. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30342942

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-04-11

[blazes]

No mention that they are Muslims?  This is the sort of reporting you expect from the Guardian and other ultra-PC British news outlets.  This could be an item in the Rotherham Advertiser or the Bradford Telegraph.....

[Srikcir]

9 hours ago, webfact said:

The convicts were each sentenced to 33 years and four months in jail

There doesn't seem to be any standards in sentencing - pretty much a "whatever."

In the lower court they were sentenced to life. Then commuted to 50 years because because their testimony was useful. This usually refers to a confession.

The Appeals Court commutes the 50 years to 33 years with no apparent reasoning and upheld by the Supreme Court. Just guessing but maybe there was some "irregularity" in their confession and/or evidence and/or in their "interrogation" that might require some sentencing mitigation. There are no official court transcripts I believe that judges can take notes but such is not public) and seems to be little transparency in the decisions.