• 
• 

Somkid is a former deputy prime minister and finance minister, who chaired a committee on policies and measures to help farmers. Newin is a former deputy agriculture minister.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Div-ision for Political Off-ice Holders decided yesterday to commence a trial over alleged irregularities in the Bt1.4-billion project. The 44 suspects are divided into three groups.

The first group involves political office-holders who sat in a committee screening projects for the Cabinet, a panel on policies and measures to help farmers, and a team that managed the rubber sapling project which set terms of reference for the bidding.

The second group is state officials on the committee that oversaw the bidding. The third group is the companies that were allegedly involved, namely Charoen Pokphand Seeds, Resort Land, and Ek Charoen Agriculture.

The Court also permitted the National Counter Corruption Commission, which took over the case from the now-defunct Assets Examination Committee (AEC), to be the plaintiff in the case.

The AEC had earlier recommended that Somkid, Newin and 42 others be charged with malfeasance, collusion in a state tender for violating Articles 151 and 157, plus Articles 4 and 10-14 of the Offences and Collusion in State Bidding 1999 Act in the procurement of 90 million rubber saplings. The court scheduled the first hearing at 10am on September 23.

Supreme Court chief judge Bunrawd Tanprasert, led a panel of nine judges to read the decision yesterday. The panel found the court had jurisdiction to hear the case in accordance to Article 9 of the Criminal Proce-dures of Political Office-Holders 1999 Act. The suit was filed in line with the Supreme Court's criminal procedures.

The court dismissed a petition from the defendants' that sought a Consti-tution Court ruling on whether the AEC had the legitimacy to recommend charges against them. The court explained that the Constitution Court gave a verdict on June 31 this year that the AEC had the right to investigate corruption and that an extension of its term was legal. However, the court said the defendants could object to the NCCC and the AEC during the trial. The court ruling will be delivered to defendants in 10 days. Jessada Anucharee, a lawyer with the Law Society of Thailand, said all defendants must report to the court personally, otherwise they would face arrest warrants.

The scheme was initiated by Newin in 2004, but irregularities came to light when farmers complained about the poor quality of the saplings, a million of which were reportedly dead when delivered.