Thai court affirms tycoon’s prison sentence for poaching

By BUSABA SIVASOMBOON
Associated Press

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Supreme Court has affirmed a three-year, two-month prison sentence for a top construction tycoon in connection with a poaching incident in a wildlife sanctuary in which a black panther was shot and cooked over a campfire. Premchai Karnasuta is president of Italian-Thai Development PLC, one of the country’s biggest and best-known construction companies that was involved in the building of Bangkok international airport and the Skytrain mass transit system. His jailing is a rare case of a rich, influential Thai having to serve time for wrongdoing. The Thai public has grown weary of repeated examples of wealthy Thais apparently flouting the law with impunity. Premchai was arrested in 2018 at a campsite deep within a UNESCO World Heritage Site.