BANGKOK: A Thai court has sentenced a top rice trader believed to have close ties with former premier Thaksin Shinawatra to three years in jail for embezzling rice from state stockpiles.
An official at the district court in Samut Prakan province east of Bangkok said Apichart Chansakulporn, former owner of bankrupt President Agri Trading, was found guilty of failing to deliver 20,000 tonnes of rice to Iran after getting a mandate for the trade from the Commerce Ministry in 2007.
“The lower court handed down a verdict on Tuesday that Mr Apichart was guilty and sentenced him to three years in jail,” the official said, declining to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to the press.
The trader is widely believed to be the head of Siam Indica, a rice trading company at the address previously used by President Agri.
Siam Indica was investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) as part of a probe into corruption in a rice intervention scheme run by the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of Thaksin, from 2011.
She was removed by the Constitutional Court for abuse of power in May and still faces separate charges of dereliction of duty relating to the intervention programme. Reuters
