Film-fest heat turned up on Jutamas

Jutamas

Piyawat Kingket, chief of the Department of Special Investigation's special crimes unit, said yesterday that evidence has been found locally to implicate suspects, including Jutamas, who has consistently and vehemently denied any involvement in allegedly taking kickbacks while she was overseeing the film festival.

The case, which involved bribery and budgets that were within Jutamas's power to approve, has been forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which is expected to make a decision soon on how to proceed, Piyawat said.

The trial of two Hollywood producers accused of trying to bribe their way into running the Bangkok International Film Festival is now underway at the US Federal District Court in Los Angeles, and, for the first time, Jutamas's name has cropped up in the court transcripts.

The local case, however, has not incorporated any accounts from American investigators who questioned producer Gerald Green and his wife Patricia, who stand accused in the US of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the film festival.

Getting the US investigators' interrogation records would be a lengthy bilateral process, Piyawat said.

The FBI, however, did seek cooperation from Thailand when launching its probe of the couple during the Surayud government.

The US indictment, filed in December 2007, claims that Green, the executive producer of the 2006 film, "Rescue Dawn", and his wife conspired to pay a Thai government official more than US$1.7 million (Bt58 million) to land the contract to run the festival.

The indictment says organising the festival would be worth more than $10 million.

The Financial Times noted that the case against the Greens is the first time that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been used against the entertainment industry, but it may not be the last.

The US court heard that the accomplices attempted to conceal their bribery by using different business entities, some with dummy addresses and phone numbers, and by making "commission" payments through the foreign bank accounts of intermediaries.

The defence in the US trial is expected to start making its argument in the next few days.

Extra spending by US filmmakers to keep officials overseas happy is reportedly not that unusual.

A 2007 Times analysis of the budget of the film "Sahara", for instance, found that $237,386 was spent on "courtesy payments", "gratuities" and "local bribes".