Former Yala governor Teera Mintrasak became the first high-ranking official to be convicted in the infamous GT-200 bomb detector case, in which he was found guilty of malfeasance in office and sentenced to eight years in prison by the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct on Tuesday.
Eleven other officials, most of whom have already retired from government service, were also sentenced to four months to four years in prison.
The convictions came five years after the Don Mueang District Court sentenced the executive of AVA Satcom Company to nine years in prison for selling bogus bomb detectors to the Justice Ministry's Central Forensic Science Institute.
However, more than ten state agencies, including the three armed forces, the Royal Thai Police, the Royal Thai Aide-De Camp Department and the Customs Department, were all involved in the procurement of the bogus detectors back in 2005.
Altogether, 848 GT-200 and Alpha-6 devices, worth about 767 million baht, were bought, with the Royal Thai Army the biggest buyer, accounting for 90% of all devices bought by the agencies.
Interestingly, 755 GT-200s were bought from 2007–2009 by the Thai army under Gen Anupong Paojinda, then-army commander-in-chief, and two by former army chief Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin.
Although more than ten state agencies were involved in the procurement deals, the bomb detector case is not as complicated when compared with the rice-pledging scandal of the government of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Also, a UK court in 2013 sentenced British executives Gary Bolton of Global Technical, the producer and distributor of GT-200s, and businessman James McCormick, distributor of ADE bomb detectors, to seven and ten years in prison each for selling bogus detectors to several countries, including Thailand, Iraq and Mexico.
Yet, it took the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) so many years to complete their findings, with enough evidence to substantiate 20 dossiers sent to the Office of the Attorney-General.
Unsurprisingly, several high-ranking officials were conspicuously left off the hook. For instance, the highest-ranking army officer implicated in the army's procurement deals is the chief of the Army Ordnance Department, even though all the deals had the consent of Gen Anupong when he was commander-in-chief.
Since the military is the biggest spender of taxpayers' money in the deals, estimated at 682 million baht for the 757 GT-200 units, the NACC should have given top priority to the army, as opposed to small fries like the Yala provincial administration, the Customs Department or the Central Forensic Science Institute, in its display of resolve in addressing the scandal.
The army may excuse itself for being driven to obtain defensive equipment to stop or reduce the bombings in the restive deep South or give its personnel a sense of security, but it remains incomprehensible how knowledgeable decision-makers in the army and other state agencies were easily duped.
After all, the tools they bought were simply plastic cases with swinging antennae and a few magnetic cards, devoid of any mechanism or batteries inside, touted as equipment able to detect explosives and drugs.
The NACC must be transparent and be able to explain why only middle-ranking officials were charged in the case while high-ranking officials were let off the hook despite the many years of procrastination.
