Bangkok, Feb 25 : Three current Thai Cabinet ministers lost their posts on Wednesday due to their court verdicts for jail in relation to 2014’s Bangkok shutdown and street protests which they had unlawfully orchestrated.
Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan, Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta and Deputy Transport Minister Thavorn Senniam, who received jail terms ranging from five years to seven years and four months respectively, have automatically lost their ministerial seats, the Xinhua news reported.
The Criminal Court ruled a group of 39 defendants, all being former political activists attached to the now defunct People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), guilty of illicitly organising the massive anti-government protests against the government of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Former deputy prime minister and former secretary general of the PDRC Suthep Thaugsuban was among the convicts and sentenced to five years in jail
.
