2-12-2024 (BANGKOK) A significant development in one of Thailand’s most notorious corruption cases unfolded today as former Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom walked free from the Medical Correctional Institution on parole, following his conviction in a controversial government rice sales scheme.
The 64-year-old former minister, who was originally handed a 48-year sentence, secured his release after royal clemency significantly reduced his term to just over ten years. Boonsong’s return to his native Chiang Mai province comes with strict conditions, including three years and five months of probation and mandatory electronic monitoring.
The case stems from one of Thailand’s most significant political scandals, involving fraudulent government-to-government rice deals during the Yingluck Shinawatra administration. The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for People Holding Political Positions found in 2017 that purported rice export agreements with China were actually elaborate schemes to sell government-stockpiled rice to domestic private companies.
Initially sentenced to 42 years in 2017, Boonsong’s prison term was extended to 48 years in 2019 following an unsuccessful appeal. However, subsequent royal intervention dramatically reduced his sentence, which would have originally kept him behind bars until 2028.
The scandal is inextricably linked to former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s rice-pledging programme, a flagship policy that helped secure her Pheu Thai Party’s electoral victory in 2011. The scheme’s aftermath led to Yingluck’s dramatic flight from Thailand on the very day Boonsong was imprisoned. She was later sentenced in absentia to five years’ imprisonment for failing to prevent corruption within the programme.
