Ex-top Thai model sentenced to 20-year jail term on drug charges

BANGKOK, June 12 (TNA) - A former popular Thai model has been sentenced by Bangkok's Criminal Court to 20 years in prison and a fine of two million baht on drug charges. The 41-year-old former Thai super model, Chatchaya Cuesta Ramos or Alisa Inthusamit or "Yu-Yee", was arrested upon her arrival at Bangkok's Don Mueang Airport on November 10, 2012, after immigration police received a tip-off that she was smuggling cocaine into the country. The Thai authorities then inspected her belongings and found 251 milligrammes of cocaine hidden in a bar of chocolate inside her luggage and, thus, charged her with possessing and smuggling narcotics into the Kingdom. The former model claimed that she was given the bar of chocolate by a passenger on the same flight during her trip back to Bangkok from Vietnam, insisting that she was unaware the cocaine was hidden in the chocolate bar. But the Criminal Court said it had analysed the case and found it was impossible that she was given a gift by someone she did not know and evidence presented by the public prosecutors, the plaintiff, appeared to be well-grounded. The Criminal Court, thus, sentenced the former super model to a 20-year jail term and a two-million-baht fine. However, according to the court's verdict statement, the defendant provided information useful for interrogators and her jail term was, therefore, commuted by one-fourth to a 15-year imprisonment and a fine of 1.5 million baht. The Criminal Court also added another 3-month jail term to the former super model, as earlier sentenced by the Min Buri Court, on her charge of illegal trafficking of endangered wild species into the country without an official permission. The former super model accepted the court's verdict and she was seeking the court's approval of her temporary release on a two-million-baht bail, while assigning her lawyer to fight for her case in Higher Courts. (TNA)