Bribery case linked to illegal logging scandal
Former deputy forestry chief Prawat Thanadkha and a timber trader were sentenced to five years and two years in jail respectively for their parts in the five million baht bribery case connected to the Salween illegal logging scandal in Tak from 1997 to 1998.

The Criminal Court found Vinai Panichayanuban, 60, managing director of Sahavanakij (2499) Company, and Prawat, 61, guilty of bribery.
The verdict was issued after two employees of the Bank of Ayudhaya's Bang Khen branch testified that Vinai had withdrawn five million baht from the bank on Dec 11, 1998. A police investigation, court testimonies and circumstantial evidence confirmed that Vinai put the money in a cardboard box and a briefcase and later gave it to Prawat.
—The bribery took place after forestry officials seized 14,600 teak logs from Sahavanakij (2499) Co on suspicion that they had been illegally cut and delivered from the Salween forest in Tak.
The public prosecutors in the lawsuit filed on Nov 21, 2001, alleged that Vinai offered Prawat five million baht to order his subordinates to stop looking into the origin of the logs or to cancel the logs' seizure, and that Prawat took the money.
Crime Suppression Division police later confiscated the money in a sealed cardboard box in Lat Phrao district and pressed bribery charges against Vinai and Prawat. Both have always denied the charges.
The court was told during the trial that Prawat, after taking the money, had changed his mind and tried in vain to reach Vinai on the phone many times, including three times on Feb 10, 1998, to return the money. He later offered to donate the money to the Thais Help Thais Fund, but his offer was rejected by then prime minister Chuan Leekpai.
Fingerprints on adhesive tape around the bunch of money matched the tellers' and a manager of the bank's Ban Tak district branch who confirmed that the briefcase had been given to Vinai as a present because he was a major customer.
,Assistant national police chief Seripisut Temiyavej, who was then handling the case, quoted a senior policeman in his testimony to the court that Vinai had consulted Pol Maj-Gen Pitak Thienthong, then deputy chief of the Central Investigations Bureau, on how to find a way out of the five million baht fiasco.
Stating that the crime was already committed and there was no reason to lessen the punishment for the defendants, the court sentenced Vinai to two years in jail and Prawat to five years, and ordered the money to be seized by the state.
After hearing the verdict, Vinai and Prawat asked for and were granted bail using land title deeds worth 500,000 baht each as surety. Prawat pledged to appeal, insisting that he did not accept any bribe.