Police’s Crime Suppression Division (CSD) is ready to file charges against Department of Special Investigation (DSI) senior investigator Pisitchai Sawangwattanakorn, if one or more of the four Bangkok temples mentioned in his Facebook posts as being implicated in the ongoing temple-fund embezzlement scandal, wished to press legal action.
CSD commander Pol Maj-General Maitri Chimcherd said on Tuesday that the police’s ongoing probe into the major scandal had not yet found any information about wrongdoing at the four temples –Wat Paknam Bhasi Charoen, Wat Phitchaya Yatikaram, Wat Bowonniwet Vihara and Wat Ratchasittharam – thus contradicting Pisitchai’s claim on his personal Facebook posts.
Maitri also said there was no raid planned for Wat Suthat Thepwararam, another temple separately rumoured to be in the police’s sights.
Pisitchai was transferred on Monday from the DSI Bureau of Taxation Crime to an inactive post at the DSI Head Office of Special Case Experts, pending a probe for allegedly publishing inappropriate information about the police’s ongoing investigation.
Pol Maj-General Kamol Rienracha, head of the Royal Thai Police’s Counter-Corruption Division that handled the embezzlement case investigation, said on Sunday that his investigators did not yet have final information from the fourth round of the investigation, and that he had no idea where Pisitchai had obtained the information that he chose to make public.
