Bail hopes rise for woman in forest case – The Nation

A BAIL release application for Daeng Sirisorn, a 48-year-old Kalasin woman sentenced to 15 years in prison for forest-reserve encroachment after she went mushrooming with her husband, would be submitted tomorrow, according to her lawyer.It would be known by Wednesday whether her release would be approved, he said. The story of Daeng and her 51-year-old husband Udom was circulated over Thai social media, after they were arrested in Kalasin’s Huai Mek district on July 12, 2010 for allegedly collecting mushrooms. They were later charged with forest encroachment and illegal logging.

The couple was sentenced to 30 years in prison, a penalty which was halved due to their claimed “useful confession”

When the case went before the Supreme Court, the ailing Udom was released on Bt500,000 bail. Lawyer Songkran Atchariyasap, chairman of the Network Against Acts that Destroy Kingdom, Religion and Monarchy, said his group found suspicious circumstances in the case. He urged the Supreme Court to probe all state officials involved – including forestry officials, police investigators and a public prosecutor.

Songkran repeated that neither Udom nor Daeng had made confessions during the police and public prosecutor’s phases of the case. He also claimed that the public prosecutor’s handling of the indictment, by not studying police investigation reports thoroughly, was careless. He cited forestry officials as saying that they didn’t find the couple at the scene but their motorcycle – so official inquiries about the motorbike were met by the couple’s admission of collecting mushrooms, an action upon which the police investigation was based.

Asking if the couple was being scapegoated by some officials trying to help a forest-encroaching investor, he said the group would apply for Daeng’s bail release tomorrow. He urged the Supreme Court to look at the case details and approve Daeng’s bail so she could take care of her husband and urged the attorney general to probe the case.