The king of Cambodia has signed a royal pardon for the Thai man who was recently sentenced to a 7-year jail term for spying.
Siwarak Chothipong was working for Cambodian air traffic control when former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra flew to Cambodia last month. Siwarak was accused of stealing documents and passing on confidential details of flight plans to the Thai embassy. Although he denied stealing any documents, the Thai air traffic controller did admit to passing on flight details which he said were in the public domain. Earlier this week a Phnom Penh court found him guilty of a breach of security when he released details of Thaksin’s private flights in Cambodia.
The Thai and Cambodian governments have been involved in a diplomatic rift in recent months and the way in which this incident played out will be another barb thrown in the direction of Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva who had been seeking Thaksin’s extradition from Cambodia. It is widely believed that the close personal friendship between Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen and former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra was the reason for Hun Sen making the royal pardon request to the Cambodian king. Siwarak Chothipong will be greeted on his release on Monday by members of the pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai party in what will be seen as a public relations success for Thaksin Shinawatra and his red-shirted supporters. The Thaksin influence in securing the release of a Thai national abroad will play well to the domestic crowd in Thailand although there are also some cynics who claim the entire incident was deliberately engineered to allow such an outcome.
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