Khao Yai land was sold to cash buyer

Bangkok Post 10/01/2010

The former owner of the Khao Yai Thiang property now held by a former prime minister flouted a "not-to-be-sold" condition when he parted with the land in 1993.

Phra Bao Akkhajitto, whose layman's name is Bao Sinnok, was given the land by state. He was allowed to farm it, not sell it. However, he agreed to sell anyway, when a local construction manager and two military officers turned up at his property and expressed an interest.

He sold the 22-rai plot for 600,000 baht cash because he needed the money.

"I knew the land was for us to live on and farm. It was not meant to be sold. But my family and I needed money," he said.

Phra Bao, who was ordained in 2000, said he sold the plot to a man called Noppadol, who ran a construction company in Nakhon Ratchasima municipality.

Other potential buyers offered him 400,000-500,000 baht for the land. "But Mr Noppadol came to me with 600,000 baht, so I sold it to him," he said.

The Sinnok family was among hundreds of families who occupied the Khao Yai Thiang forest reserves in early 1970s and grew corn and cassava.

They were later allocated a 15-rai plot each under a 1975 cabinet resolution.

Under the resolution, the allocated land can be transferred to the farmers' legal heirs, but cannot be sold.

Noppadol, whose surname was Pitakwanit, transferred the plot to Maj-Gen Surarit Jantrathip, then a Channel 5 director, in 1997.

The property changed hands again in 2002, when Khunying Chitravadee Chulanont, wife of privy councillor and former prime minister Gen Surayud, became the registered owner.

The plot is now registered under the name of Chul Chulanont, Gen Surayud's son.

The Sinnok family moved from Khao Yai Thiang to Ban Sida in Bua Yai district after selling the property. Phra Bao said he did not care to know to whom he was selling the land.

"Mr Noppadol showed up on my property with two military officers. He didn't say who he was buying the land for, and I didn't see the need to ask." He heard about the land plot in 2007 when Gen Surayud, then the prime minister, was embroiled in a forest reserve encroachment scandal concerning the site.