The star witnesses

They are an integral part of the historic ruling, thanks either to their names and status that lent credence to the court's judgement or to damning

testimonies that the defence found difficult to rebut. Without the following people, the case may not have ended as it did:

SURAKIART SATHIRATHAI,

FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER

HERO OR BACKSTABBER, Surakiart's testimony on the Export-Import Bank loan to the Burmese junta showed not only had Thaksin been warned that the loan could subject him to criticism for a conflict of interest, but also that Thaksin defied such warnings by virtually demanding a sizeable increase in the credit line.

Through Surakiart's statements, the Supreme Court learned that Thaksin had been warned about the loan, not once, but a few times. Surakiart also conveyed a similar message to the Burmese Foreign Ministry during a bilateral meeting in Phuket in February 2004. At that meeting, he told the Burmese to keep the loan request at Bt3 billion, but later it was Thaksin who gave a verbal order for a Bt1 billion increase. A sizeable portion of the Bt4 billion headed directly toward Thaicom, although the original purpose of the loan did not seem to involve telecom development.

Apichart Shinnowan, director-general of the ministry's East Asia Department, backed up Surakiart's testimony by adding key pieces to the Exim Bank loan jigsaw puzzle, leading the Supreme Court to declare the loan one of the two "clearest" cases of Thaksin's misuse of power to help his own businesses.

Two Thaicom employees, Natta-pong Temsiripong and Padej Wongpa-yaban, gave the court more information on Thaicom's attempts to make inroads into Burma. They told the court Thaicom had been involved in telecom development schemes in Bur-ma since 1998. The court also learned that Thaicom established cordial relations with the Burmese top authorities when Thaksin was in power.

SITTHICHAI POOKAIYAUDOM, FORMER INFORMATION |AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY MINISTER

SITTHICHAI told the court that the excise tax policy for telecom services implemented by the Thaksin administration in 2003 prevented fair competition and benefited his family's telecom empire. He testified before the Supreme Court on January 12. He said state-owned TOT and CAT Telecom suffered financially from the policy, which had allowed private telecom operators to deduct the excise tax from concession fees they paid to TOT or CAT.

Sitthichai, who reversed the policy after taking over ICT oversight for the Surayud Chulanont regime, said the excise tax measure effectively discouraged companies, especially foreign giants, from entering the telecom market.

SOMKIAT TANGKITVANIT, VICE PRESIDENT OF THAILAND DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH INSTITUTE

SOMKIAT told the court that collecting excise tax from telecom services was inconsistent with the master plan for development of the telecom industry.

Telecom services have brought great benefit to society, but instead of imposing the excise tax on telecom services, the government should have focused on promoting wider accessibility of telecom services to benefit society more, he said. The telecom-excise policy helped existing private telecom firms boost their profits, because new competition was curbed, he added.

If the government imposed the telecom excise in order to seek more revenue for state coffers, it should not have issued the Cabinet resolution to allow private telecom-concession holders to deduct excise taxes from concession fees they paid to state telecom enterprises.

Somkiat testified before the Supreme Court on January 12.

BORWORNSAK UWANNO, DIRECTOR OF THE KING PRAJADHIPOK INSTITUTE

ALTHOUGH Borwornsak did not testify directly to the Supreme Court, his testimony to the Assets Examination Committee was crucial. It showed that Thaksin held a conflict of interest in the satellite deal.

Borwornsak served as Cabinet secretary-general under Thaksin, succeeding Wissanu Kreu-ngarm. Borwornsak told the AEC that he withdrew the satellite proposal from the Cabinet agenda.

In this deal, Shin Corp requested that Thaicom reduce its stake in Shin Corp. The transport minister at that time approved this deal even before the Cabinet could give its nod.

"I thought that this matter was not right because in this concession, the accused was the prime minister, who had a concession with the state. I therefore withdrew the proposal from the Cabinet," Borwornsak said.

The Supreme Court used his statement as part of its deliberation to rule that Thaksin had attempted to abuse his power.

WALACHAYA SRIMACHAN, ASST SECRETARY-GENERAL |OF THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

ANOTHER STAR witness was Walachaya. Her testimony on November 19, 2009 before the Supreme Court broke the back of both Thaksin and his ex-wife Pojaman Damapong.

She gave a detailed account of the ownership structure of Win Mark, an offshore company that Thaksin and Pojaman used to hide their assets. This followed a tedious joint investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Special Investigation, which had to work closely with financial regulators from other countries.

As a result of the investigation following Walachaya's testimony, it was found that the shares of six companies related to SC Assets were sold to Win Mark for a combined Bt1.5 billion.

The money was transferred from several accounts at three banks in Singapore. Bt300 million of this Bt1.5 billion came from a bank account of Thaksin and Pojaman, while Bt1.2 billion came from Win Mark's bank account in Singapore.

Win Mark and Ample Rich Investments are both offshore companies of Thaksin.

Walachaya's testimony provided important evidence for the Supreme Court to conclude that Thaksin and Pojaman concealed their assets.

NAM YIMYAEM, CHAIRMAN OF THE ASSETS EXAMINATION COMMITTEE

NAM APPEARED on the witness stand on December 3, 2009 to testify against Thaksin. His agency was responsible for coming up with the charge of Thaksin being unusually rich. Thaksin's lawyers tried to question the legitimacy of the AEC. But the Supreme Court asserted the legitimacy of the AEC, whose work was passed on to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. Nam testified that the AEC's investigation found that Thaksin had become unusually rich as a result of his abuse of power while serving as prime minister. Without the AEC, the Bt76-billion assets-seizure case would not have come into being.

SUNAI MANOMAI-UDOM,

FORMER CHIEF OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATION (DSI)

IN KEY TESTIMONY to the Supreme Court, Sunai said Thaksin and his ex-wife set up layers of "paper" companies to hide the true ownership of their assets. Sunai was one of the prosecution witnesses.

After SC Assets was founded in 1994, Thaksin and his wife Pojaman set up several "shell" companies such as Win Mark, Blue Diamond and Sinatra to conceal their holdings in SC Assets, the real estate development arm of the family.

Sunai said there were certified documents from Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia to support the conclusion these firms were nominees of Thaksin and Pojaman while he held public office from 2001-2006.

KAEWSAN ATIBHODI, MEMBER OF THE ASSETS EXAMINATION COMMITTEE

AS A KEY prosecution witness, Kaewsan in November 2009 said the whole Bt76-billion fortune should be taken by the state.

"First of all, Thaksin hid his vast shareholdings even after being elected as prime minister, so he intentionally violated Article 100(3) of the NCCC law.  Secondly, as prime minister, he introduced measures and policies that benefited Shin Corp so he violated Article 100(1) of the NCCC law.

"Therefore, Thaksin abused his office to gain his wealth, resulting in a loss to the state of more than Bt100 billion. Since he and his former wife controlled as much as 46.87 per cent of Shin Corp, the benefits from such a large shareholding were therefore ill-gotten and should be forfeited," he said.

The prosecution would have to convince the court that Thaksin and Pojaman did really conceal their wealth while the former was in office - a key point consistently countered and dismissed by the defence lawyers.

Given that the burden of proof rests with the accused in corruption and related cases, the prosecution concluded that they were not satisfied with evidence presented by the defence, which argued that all Shin Corp shares were "sold" to the couple's children and relatives before Thaksin assumed the premiership.

"This argument was not convincing because the documentation, such as notices of share transfers, promissory notes, annual reports of Ample Rich (one of the offshore nominees), could have been tampered with or backdated to alter the whole story," Kaewsan said.

"However, we were not given any hard evidence that couldn't be meddled with, such as share depositories or transaction records that Thaksin could have sought from UBS Bank (Singapore branch) to prove that his son, Panthongtae, was the authorised owner of those shares, not just his father's nominee."

Kaewsan's role was pivotal in the seizure of Thaksin's wealth.