Thai minister Thammanat Prompao’s apparent Australian criminal past revealed

The deputy agriculture minister spent four years in a Sydney jail in the 1990s after pleading guilty to conspiring to import heroin

During his time in Australia, Thammanat told police he had worked in Thailand as a bodyguard for the crown prince

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Thai minister Thammanat Prompao. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:36pm, 9 Sep 2019Updated: 9:48pm, 9 Sep 2019

A controversial Thai cabinet minister has apparently been caught in a lie about his criminal past after Australia’s Nine media turned up evidence that he spent four years in prison in Sydney after being convicted of drug trafficking.

In July, Thammanat Prompao was sworn-in as deputy agriculture minister in Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s cabinet, and immediately sought to play down rumours about his time in Australia during the 1990s. The former army officer had acknowledged he was jailed while in Sydney but denied he had been convicted of drug trafficking.

“I did not import, produce or deal heroin,” he said in July. “While on vacation in Sydney, I was properly cleared by immigration. But I was unfortunate to have been in the same place at the same time as some drug offenders.”

Thammanat, 54, claimed he and another Thai national were charged in 1993 with failing to report knowledge of drug dealing to police.

“I denied the charge and was jailed for eight months,” he said. “After I was released, I lived in Sydney and worked as sales manager at the largest sanitary ware chain in New South Wales for four years.

“I was later deported to Thailand because of a policy by the then Sydney mayor, who did not welcome Asians who formed groups and had no permanent residence.”

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