Witness examination in Thaksin’s Section 112 case scheduled for July next year

he court has finished examining evidence in the Section 112 case of 'Thaksin Shinawatra' and the results show that the prosecution will bring witnesses to testify in 3 rounds, while the defendant will bring witnesses to testify in 4 rounds. The witness testimonies will begin in July next year. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a defendant in a Section 112 case, arrived at the Criminal Court at 9:00 a.m. wearing a dark suit over a yellow shirt. He looked cheerful and walked towards the media with a bright smile on his face and eyes, different from the day the prosecutor brought him to court and the court set a date to decide on 2 locations on June 18. Thaksin hid through the back of the court. Today, Mr. Thaksin also answered the media's questions about his confidence in fighting the Section 112 case, saying that overall he was not worried and had no problems. After the interview, Mr. Thaksin immediately walked into the court, with his team of lawyers following him. In this case, the prosecutor fil ed a lawsuit against Mr. Thaksin as a defendant in court on June 18, 2024, on charges of lese majeste and violating the Computer Crime Act in the case of giving an interview to the media in South Korea, which occurred in 2015. After filing the lawsuit, Mr. Thaksin was granted temporary release. The court set bail at 500,000 baht and set a condition that the defendant is prohibited from leaving the country unless permitted by the court. One may ask why Mr. Thaksin had to come to the Criminal Court by himself today, even though he had previously assigned his lawyer to act on behalf of the court on many occasions. The answer is that Section 112 carries a penalty of imprisonment of 3 to 15 years. Therefore, the defendant cannot request the court to consider the case in absentia. Mr. Thaksin therefore had to come to court by himself, even if he was just sitting to listen to the evidence examination process. He had to come by himself. The court will ask both parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, how many witnes ses there are in order to set a date for the examination of witnesses. If there are duplicate witnesses, the court will immediately order them to be removed in order to expedite the trial process. And most recently, the court has finished examining the evidence for both the plaintiff and the defendant at 11:30 this morning, taking almost 3 hours to examine the evidence. After that, Mr. Thaksin immediately left the court and got into his car, without stopping to talk or allow the media to interview him, but he had a smile on his face as usual. Later, Mr. Winya Chatmontri, a lawyer, announced that today the court examined the defendant's statement, which Mr. Thaksin denied. The plaintiff cited 10 witnesses as evidence, which were already investigated. However, the plaintiff did not refer to the additional witnesses, which may be seen as not beneficial to the case. Therefore, the defendant exercised the right to refer to the aforementioned witnesses as witnesses for the defendant, believing that it would be be neficial to the defendant. In addition, the defendant also had many other witnesses, including expert witnesses who examined the CDs and computers. Today's examination of the witnesses also yielded tangible information that the information the plaintiff cited was all pulled from the Internet and was not evidence from the actual crime scene. For the prosecution's witnesses, there are 10, and the defendant's 14. The first round of witness examination will be on July 1, 2, and 3, 2025, while the defendant's will begin their examination on July 15, 16, 22, and 23 of next year, for a total of 7 rounds. After that, the court will make a judgment in the next step. Source: Thai News Agency