BANGKOK — Police on Tuesday said a court approved a new arrest warrant for Vorayuth “Boss” Yoovidhya over his fatal crash in 2012.
Deputy assistant to the national police chief Lt. Gen. Charuwat Waisaya said the court has considered the new evidence put forward by the investigators, and issued a warrant to arrest him over three charges of reckless driving, refusing to help the injured person, and possessing illicit drugs.
“We will arrest him as soon as he returns to Thailand,” Charuwat, who serves in a panel to revive the investigation over the crash, said in a phone interview. Previous publicized attempts by the police to extradite Vorayuth did not yield any result.
The development followed a hugely controversial decision by the prosecutors in July to drop the charges against Vorayuth on the grounds that they lacked evidence to take the billionaire scion to court.
The charges stated in today’s warrant carry a statute of limitation of up to 15 years, and police will issue a new Interpol Red Notice to bring him to trial in Thailand, Lt. Gen. Charuwat said.
Vorayuth is believed to reside overseas, having fled Thailand in 2017 just three days before the court approved the arrest warrant on him.
Thai laws permit the police to file charges against the same suspect in the case that the initial round of prosecution falls apart, as long as the investigators can convince the court they have uncovered a new set of evidence.
Lt. Gen. Charuwat did not say what constitutes as the fresh evidence that led to the arrest warrant, but a committee convened by the police to revive the investigation received a new eyewitness account that Vorayuth was driving as fast as 170 kmph when he crashed and killed a policeman in 2012.
The previous set of investigators identified Vorayuth’s speed at the time of accident as 80 kmph.
There is no immediate reaction from Vorayuth’s lawyer team.
