Thailand Frees Wife-Killer and Sparks Massive Outrage Among Women by Phairath Khampha 29 July 2002 A court in Thailand on July 19, 2002 freed a man who admitted battering his wife to death in 2001 after a domestic quarrel. Pipat Lueprasitkul, a former university lecturer, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence, and ordered to do 50 hours of community service after the court took into account his academic skills and the young age of his children, and the fact that he was a member of Thailand's elite by nature of his social position. This gave the message to the Thai public that it was all right for members of Thailand's elite or people of higher social status to batter their wives and even kill them. Women's groups in Thailand described the verdict as unacceptable, and planned to protest against it. After being allowed to leave a free man, Pipat thanked the court for showing him mercy. He already was out hunting among women half his age for someone to replace his late wife. Thailand's legal system came under the spotlight after widely divergent treatment and outcomes from spousal-abuse cases depending on whether the huband or the wife is the abuser, with the husband usually getting the better of it, or whether or not one is a member of the country's economic and political elite. Despite the seriousness of his crime, the court had decided to reduce his sentence to a suspended jail term and 50 hours of community service. The case against the accused appeared to be strong - his wife died from her injuries in July 2001, a day after being admitted to hospital. Pipat then fled to Vietnam and Laos, before returning a month later to face police questioning. He later admitted to battering his wife with a golf club. According to the court verdict, on the night of the crime Pipat got into a heated quarrel with his wife because she failed to pick him up from work, causing him to suspect her of having gone out with an ex-boyfriend, which was patently untrue. Then in the true fashion of a Thai male, he attacked his wife by throwing books at her, hitting her in the face with an umbrella and an umbrella, and kicking her several times. Wannee suffered brain damage as a result and died later in hospital. 'Serious setback' The court at first sentenced him to four years in jail for manslaughter. However, the wife's family pleaded for leniency after the former professor paid them a large sum of money - and the judge decided to take into account the fact that the accused was well-educated and had high social status, had shown remorse for his crime, and had young children to look after. That explanation outraged women's groups in Thailand, who said the extraordinary lightness of the sentence was a serious setback to their campaign against domestic violence. Although domestic violence is illagal in Thailand, most police, who are mainly men, ignore complaints made to them and have a rather misogynist view that it is a man's right to beat his wife if he thinks she has done something to displease him. More than half of the women in Thailand in a recent surveyed admitted to having been beaten by their husbands at one time or another. According to a World Health Organization-sponsored study, nearly half of all women in Thailand are subjected to physical or sexual abuse at some point in their lives by other men. The laws intended to protected are rarely applied because the only ones who can do so are men and they would rather the social norm of keeping women subjugated continues Activists argued that because he was a respected university lecturer, the court should have made an example of Pipat, and not given him special treatment. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: How many law books does Thailand have? Thailand's legal system came under the spotlight after widely divergent treatment and outcomes from spousal-abuse cases depending on whether the huband or the wife is the abuser, with the husband usually getting the better of it, or whether or not one is a member of the country's economic and political elite. Here is a question for all students of Thai law: Which of the following criminal suspects deserves the harshest charges and punishment? A) A man who beat his wife; B) A man who beat his wife to death; or C) A woman who shot dead her abusive husband when he was attacking her with a knife. Forget justice. Take a wild guess. This is Thailand. Here's what really happened: Mr A was sentenced to two years and six months in jail. Mr B was prosecuted for "physical assault leading to death" and given a two-year suspended jail term. In other words, he's a free man. Meanwhile, Mrs C was prosecuted for "intentionally killing" her husband and is standing trial. The July 18 Criminal Court verdict which virtually set free former university lecturer Pipat Luepra-sitkul, who beat his wife to death with a golf club and an umbrella, not only drew protests from women's groups, it also focused attention on comparable cases which were treated rather differently by the country's justice system. In Pipat's case, he was prosecuted for assault causing death and found guilty. However, the court - citing his valuable academic ability, his high social status [which seemed to carry the most weight in the deicsion], his duties as a father and the fact that "he has lost a loved one as a consequence" of his action - put him only on probation. Khunthong Asuni na Ayuthaya only wishes the justice system was as lenient with him. "I only hit my wife's head and it was not broken just swollen, but I had to serve almost two years in jail," said the writer and tarot card reader. He was sentenced to two years and three months in jail after being found guilty of assaulting his wife and her sister on April 7, 1996. Free since April and remarried--he and his wife were expecting their first child--he blamed his prison sentence on an unlucky choice of lawyers, although his comments surrounding the outcome of his case shows that men in Thailand really do not get it that abusing women, even if they are their wives, is criminally wrong. "I do not believe that I deserved to go to jail for what I did because although it was wrong it was not too serious," he said. Hoping to patch things up with his then-wife Orawan Chintaworn, Khunthong broke into his sister-in-law Kulawadi Jintaworn's house. He was armed with a 30-centimetre-long knife. When his wife refused to leave with him he whacked her across the skull with a sharp-edged stick. When she tried to escape he kicked her and stomped on her. When his sister-in-law tried to stop him he pulled out the knife and threatened her with it. Then he stuck a lit cigarette in her eye. "My prison friends laughed when I told them about this," he said. Throughout the investigation and subsequent trials Khunthong denied the charges against him. He claimed he did not try to force his way into his sister-in-law's house, but had just wanted to meet his son so he could give him a pair of shoes. The court accepted his testimony that he did not force his way into his sister-in-law's house, but convicted him of the assault charges nevertheless, sentencing him to two years and six months in prison and fined him 100 baht (US$1 = 41 baht). The judge said his action insulted women's dignity. Both the Appeal Court and Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling, but commuted the sentence to two years and three months in jail. Khunthong was released from jail after one year and eight months for good behaviour. "It was only a domestic quarrel that happens every day in society. I believe that society knows that I did not commit a serious offence. People still believe in me as they continue to ask me to read their cards. Others gave me moral support to start life afresh," he said. "I have learnt the most important lesson in my life. I will have live life more carefully." Meanwhile, Saeng (not her real name) is uncertain if she can start afresh. The 37-year-old woman has been standing trial for four years after being prosecuted on charges of intentionally killing her husband. Although she reported to police that she shot him in self-defence as he was running towards her with a knife in his hand, police did not believe her and pressed a first-degree murder charge against her, she said. Such a charge is punishable by death in Thailand. Hardly making ends meet from washing clothes, Saeng pays for two of her three children to go to school--one at vocational and the other at primary school. She also has to pay their medical bills. One suffers from allergies and another has epilepsy. Constant trips to court to fight the case have put an even heavier burden on her. Saeng's marriage was turbulent. She never knew from one day to the next whether her husband would beat her. She married him because she was pregnant, she said. She had to quit her job in a factory in Samut Prakan after her first child was born. Her husband drove a mini-bus in Bangkok. She said they began to quarrel frequently after money became tight. He started beating her after she gave birth to their second child. As in most cases of domestic abuse, the violence escalated over time. Many times he beat her so badly that she had to return to her hometown to recover, she said. Each time he would follow her and she would go back with him for the sake of her children. She had no choice but to stay with him because in Thailand women, unless they are born into the economic and political elite, have almost no economic choices they can make. After the third child was born, he began drinking heavily and the beatings became more brutal. Finally, after a severe beating she decided to file a report with police. Her husband was jailed for one night at the police station. She was forced by the police to bail him out. The beatings became a daily event after this. In February 1998, the couple quarrelled for the final time. Saeng discovered that her husband was having an affair. When she confronted him over his infidelity he attacked her. But this time she fought back. Faced with a woman fighting back, the man did what any self-respecting Thai man would do as he was losing face: he grabbed a knife from the kitchen. Saeng ran to her mother's house and grabbed up her brother's gun. Saeng said she only intended to threaten her husband with the gun, but when he ran at her wielding the knife she fired a single bullet. It was enough to kill him. When the police arrived she denied firing the gun, fearing that if she confessed, her children would have no one to take care of them. But after the funeral, Saeng went to the police station and confessed. "Police read the investigation file to me and I objected to it because it was not true. They said I intentionally killed him but I did it only to defend myself. They would not believe me,'' she said. One of Saeng's daughters told her teacher about her mother's plight and the teacher sought help from a women's foundation, which later bailed Saeng out and offered legal support. She earns 4,000 baht a month from washing and ironing clothes. The court was scheduled to rule on the case in September. "Sometimes I do not want the trial to end because if I am sentenced to prison, no one can take care of my sick children. If I am jailed, my children will face a harsh reality. Not only for having no one to support them, but for having a mother with a criminal record,'' she said. "some corrupt rich man will steal them and sell them, probably into prostitution. This is the reality of my country." Just say you are sorry and stay out of jail after committing murder Stealing 75,000 baht from the expressway in Bangkok was rewarded with 45 years in prison, although the man probably would have said that he would never do it again. Most people show remorse when standing before a court; it is not really surprising. What was remarkable was that a university lecturer who killed his wife evaded a jail term because of his confession, so-called good record of conduct, but most importantly his social status. How good can that record be after killing his wife one must wonder? Thailand's judicial system is showing disrespect for human life. When will Thailand act to get out of the bottom of the barrel? This is not to be taken lightly. "Thailand, the land where only the poor are prosecuted" is probably more correct than calling it "the land of smiles".