Police search Seripisut's property

At 1am, Prayat Jongjingwong, chief of the patrolling team at Forest Resource Management Office 10 reported to Thong Pha Phum police about the team's Wednesday search of the are around Seripisut's Phuphrai Thannam resort.

The forestry officials had utilised a GPS device to mark 27 spots and identified 50 rai of land at the resort for examination to determine if maps show that it is encroached forest land.

Previously, National Parks officials had seized the carcass of a law-protected hog deer from the area in question and filed a police complaint to look for the wrongdoer.

At 8.30am yesterday, CIB deputy chief Maj-General Sriwara Rangsiphramhanakul led a co-ordinated team of Thong Pha Phum police andForestry Department, National Parks Department, Water Transport Office 3 and Thong Pha Phum Cooperative Estate officials to search the area again to look for live hog deer. CIB investigators also filed a request to the provincial court for permission to enter the resort to continue their investigation.

Meanwhile, Seripisut yesterday said that he had obtained the land according to legal procedures and was renting it out to a third party to do business without his involvement. Commenting that a previous search during the Samak Sundaravej administration found nothing illegal, he said he would let the officials do as the law required because he had done nothing wrong.

He said the search might be a case of bullying, because he had complained to the national police chief about the Bt18-million budget for Royal Thai Police public-relations work.

He added that officials also seized the ID cards of people staying at the resort. Those who lost their IDs filed complaints of robbery at the Thong Pha Phum police station.