Court upholds term for former anti-narcotics agent

– Thailand news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community

PHUKET: The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the 41-year jail term and Bt3-million fine imposed on a former military undercover anti-narcotics agent for trafficking a large quantity of “ice” and ecstasy tablets.

The court also upheld the sentences imposed on Major Chanon Chinnawong’s two accomplices.

Accomplice Withoon Niyakij, 50, was also given a 41-year jail term and a Bt3 million fine, while Sukhum Juajaemjan, 37, got 14 years and eight months imprisonment and a fine of Bt800,000.

Chanon, 49, was also sentenced to death in 2013 for killing two policemen – Snr Sgt-Major Manoch Srilakhon and Lance Corporal Sawai Artnongwa – in a shootout on April 12, 2007 at a flat in Bangkok’s Din Daeng area.

As an undercover anti-narcotics agent, he had operated in Yala for years before turning to drug dealing.

— Phuket Gazette Editors