20 February 2021 :

Two sons of convicted drug baron and former Kuomintang fighter Lao Ta Saenlee were sentenced to death on 17 February 2021 by the Criminal Court for drug trafficking and money laundering.
Preecha and Amnart Saenlee, both sons of Lao Ta who was sentenced to life in 2017 for selling 20kg of crystal methamphetamine, were among five people found guilty of heroin trafficking and money laundering.
The three others were Somjate Saenfoo, Parinya Muan-apai and Siriwan Wongsa.
Three more people, Supakorn Parnsawat, Natthapong Muan-apai, and Chawasit Kaewkongma, were sentenced to life in prison for aiding and abetting in the drug trafficking and money laundering activities.
Initially the court handed down death sentences to all the defendants but commuted the sentences of the last three because they gave useful information during interrogation. All eight were arrested in September 2019 following a police investigation into heroin trafficking from Chiang Mai's Fang district to Narathiwat's Sungai Kolok district and money laundering activities.
According to prosecutors, Preecha and Amnart had about 12 kg of heroin in their possession and had previously arranged for the smuggling of other shipments down South between May 2018 and May 2019.
The others assisted them in the smuggling and laundering the profits. The laundered assets with an estimated worth of 200 million baht were confiscated following their arrest and included real estate. All the defendants except Siriwan denied the charges during interrogation. They were denied bail after their arrest and were taken from prison to hear the ruling.
On 13 December 2017, the Criminal Court convicted Lao Ta, his wife Asa Ma Saenlee, and two of his other sons on drug trafficking and weapons charges, following their arrests in 2016.

06 March 2021 :

The Supreme Court on 3 March 2021 decreed the death penalty for six men convicted of a string of bombings and attempted bombings in central Pattani in 2016.
Facing the death sentence are Ibrohim Yosoh, Amri Lueyoh, Santi Chatharakul, Ayub Paolee, Isamae Tuyong and Noroning Nordeh.
They were among 10 people convicted of charges relating to bombings and attempted bombings in six incidents which occurred in downtown Pattani from June to December 2016.
The other four were Masun Salae, Abdulloh Hayee-uma, Hamid Jehma and Rusran Wahayee.
The Supreme Court sentenced Masun, Abdulloh and Rusran to life imprisonment and Hamid to 36 years and eight months in jail.
The six offences include planting a bomb near the central mosque in central Pattani on 3 July 2016 and the explosion at a noodle stall in the market on Pipit Road on 24 October that year.
The explosion killed one person dead and injured 20 others.
The 10 men were also found guilty for their roles in bombing two fishing trawlers in Muang district on 18 June 2016 and setting off a bomb at the JP furniture store in downtown Pattani the following day.
All, except Ayub, were arrested in December 2016. Ayub was caught by the security forces on 2 March 2017.
The Supreme Court passed the death sentence after upholding the guilty ruling of the lower court.
According to the court, the men were convicted due to strong evidence and testimony provided by key witnesses.
Two men were found to have possessed a firearm and acquired materials and equipment for assembling bombs.
Apart from the bombing and attempted bombing charges, the men were also charged with illegal assembly to commit a crime and colluding to amass firearms for the purpose of acts of terrorism.

20 July 2021 :

A Thai Appeal Court on 20 July 2021 upheld the death sentence for former schoolmaster Prasittichai Khaokaew, who shot dead three people, one a child, and wounded four others while robbing a gold shop in Lop Buri province early last year.
The ruling was read out in the Criminal Court and was video conferenced.
The Appeal Court upheld the death sentence and refused to reduce the punishment, as requested, because of the inhumane nature of the crime.
The shootings occured when Prasittichai, 39, robbed the Aurora gold shop at Robinson department store on Phahon Yothin Highway in Muang district of Lop Buri on the night of 9 January 2020.
The Criminal Court on 27 August last year sentenced Prasittichai to death, and other penalties, for cold-blooded murder and illegal use of weapons.
During the robbery, he shot dead a security guard of the shopping centre, a two-year-old boy walking with his mother and a woman employed by the gold shop. He also shot and wounded four other people.
At that time of the robbery he was the director of a primary school in nearby Sing Buri province.

07 April 2021 :

The Khon Kaen Provincial Court on 17 March 2021 passed the death sentence on paroled serial killer Somkid Phumphuang for the murder of a woman in 2019 in Kranuan district.
The provincial court on 2 April made public its ruling in the murder case, posting the documents announcing its decision in front of the court.
Somkid, 56, was arraigned for the premediated murder of a woman, involving torturing her, theft and concealment of her body.
The court sentenced him to death for the murder. He was initially also given two years in prison for theft and 12 months for concealment of the body.
The jail term for the theft was then increased to three years, under Section 93 of the Criminal Code for any action that affects a corpse or the place where a corpse was found, before the autopsy was performed, and the offence relating to the corpse was also increased, to 16 months, the documents said.
During police interrogation, the defendant had confessed to the murder because of the evidence against him. In court, he denied the charges and fought the case.
The court found he had committed the same offence in six cases.
He was convicted and sentenced for five previous murders. The sixth murder was committed only six months after he was released on parole.
As the defendant showed no fear of the law and no remorse for his actions, the court gave him the death sentence, according to the documents in the case.
Somkid was arrested on a Surin-Bangkok train at Pak Chong in Nakhon Ratchasima on 18 December 2019, for the murder of Ratsami Mulichan, 51, at her house in Kranuan district of Khon Kaen.
Ratsami died of suffocation. Her body was wrapped with a blanket, naked from the waist down. Her wrists and ankles had been tied. An electrical wire was fastened around her neck, held with transparent adhesive tape.
Somkid was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering five women in 2005. They were singers and masseuses. He was arrested in the same year. Media reports dubbed him "Thailand's Jack the Ripper".
He was paroled and let free on 17 May 2019. The Corrections Department said he was a "model prisoner". He was arrested in December that year for the murder of Ratsami, who was his sixth victim.

22 March 2021 :

The Supreme Court on 18 March 2021 sentenced to death seven men convicted of the mass murder of a family in Krabi in 2017.
The court upheld the sentences for premeditated murder against Surikfat "Bung Fat" Bannopwongsakul, 41; Khomsan Wiangnon; Abdullo Dolo, 30; Arun Thongkham, 29; Prachak Bunthoi, 36; Thanachai Chamnong, 41, and Tawatchai Boonkong.
It also upheld a 12-month jail sentence for an eighth defendant, a woman named Chalita Sangchote.
The court found she had no knowledge of the plot to murder the family.
However, it convicted her for being involved in helping to hide valuables stolen from the murder scene.
In a video conference session, the court said the seven other defendants had callously committed the murder with no regard for the law and the death sentence would also deter anyone from committing a similar act.
Those sentenced to death were also ordered to pay restitution to relatives of the murdered family.
The amounts for each murdered family member range from 400,000 baht to two million baht.
On 10 July 2017, Worayut Sanglang, 46, chief of Moo 1 village in tambon Ban Klang, Ao Luk district in Krabi, and seven members of his family were killed in his home.
Surikfat and his accomplices wore military-style clothing, forced their way into Worayut's home and held 11 members of the family captive.
They were later all shot, execution style. Three of the victims, a mother and her two young daughters, survived.
Worayut's father-in-law had lent a plot of land to Surikfat so he could secure a loan.
He later repaid the loan but Surikfat refused to return the property.

20 January 2021 :

Former deputy commerce minister Banyin Tangpakorn on 20 January 2021 was sentenced to death for the premeditated murder of construction tycoon Chuwong Sae Tang that he tried to pass off as a car accident six years ago.
The Phra Khanong Criminal Court handed down the maximum penalty for the 56-year-old former Nakhon Sawan MP.
The court said the death sentence was warranted as Banyin, a former senior police officer, had never confessed to the murder, although all evidence showed the victim was slain.
On 26 June 2015 Chuwong, 50, was found dead in the passenger seat of a black Lexus SUV driven by Banyin after the vehicle hit a roadside tree in Suan Luang district of Bangkok. Banyin was only slightly injured. He told police that his close friend died because he did not buckle up his safety belt.
The court said the evidence showed the accident was staged, an attempt to cover-up a murder.
The ruling was delivered to the defendant via video conference. He is serving a life sentence in high-security Bang Kwang Central Prison for conspiring in the murder five years ago of Wirachai Sakuntaprasoet, the brother of a judge handling his case.
He is also serving time over the fraudulent transfer of shares after the death of Chuwong, a construction billionaire.
Police tracked Chuwong’s financial affairs and found he had apparently transferred shares worth 38 million baht to an employee at a stock broking firm who was close to Banyin.
Another 228 million baht worth of shares was transferred to a caddie at a golf course.
Evidence was the shares were transferred using forged documents, afraud orchestrated by Banyin.

09 February 2021 :

After being sentenced to death and managing to survive in one of the harshest prisons in Thailand — and after a long legal battle in the Israeli Supreme Court led by Adv. Nechama Tzivin — Israeli citizen Yigal Makhlouf will soon be transferred to Israel and then be released after a few months, the Jewish Press reported on 7 February 2021.
Makhlouf was sentenced to death 13 years ago after a conviction of trading in ecstasy pills.
The sentence was commuted to 50 years in prison after nine years of incarceration with death row inmates and iron balls weighing 50 pounds chained to each leg.
Advocate Mordechai Tzivin (married to Adv. Nechama Tzivin) visited the Israeli inmate in prison and personally witnessed these conditions.
Israeli media reported that Makhlouf will be released soon after his return to the Jewish State since according to the Israeli Penal Code, the maximum penalty for drug trafficking is 20 years and usually one third of the penalty is offset for good behavior.
For the past eight years, Adv. Nechama Tzivin has waged a legal battle on behalf of her client against former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and former Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, which reached the Israeli Supreme Court (Bagatz).
The ministers refused to transfer Makhlouf to Israel to serve the remainder of his sentence, a procedure common in cases of Israeli prisoners abroad, claiming that he posed a threat to society.
The Supreme Court judges accepted Adv. Nechama Tzivin’s petition to transfer her client to Israel on humanitarian grounds, and her contention that the intelligence provided in the case was old and irrelevant.
Tzivin says she is happy that the court accepted her claims and that after indescribable suffering in a harsh prison, her client will be able to return to his family.
“There should not be any fear, here or abroad, over legal battle against government decisions related to human rights or government corruption,” Tzivin says. “However, it’s important not to give up along the way after all the difficulties the system poses, as in this case.”