Myanmar court sentences eight Thais for arms possession

RANONG, THAILAND, August 25 (TNA) - The Myanmar court has sentenced eight, out of 92 Thai detainees in the neighbouring country, to a seven-year imprisonment each for arms possession, making their total imprisonment to 10-year-and-six-month each, as all the Thai nationals were earlier found guilty by the court for illegal encroachment on the Myanmar soil. Colonel Pornsak Poonsawasdi, Thailand's head of the Thai-Myanmar Township Border Committee at Ranong-Kawthaung, told reporters Saturday that the Myanmar court handed the verdict on Friday. All the 92 Thais were earlier sentenced to three-year-and-six-month imprisonment each on charges of illegal entering and encroaching forests in Myanmar, after they were captured by Myanmar troops on July 4. Thai officials have said the captured Thai people went into the nearly 20-kilometre-area to plant rubber trees before being arrested by Myanmar troops in Kawthaung, opposite Kra Buri border district in Thailand's southern Ranong province. Another two Thai detainees, a man and a woman, who have been additional charged for alleged drug trafficking are expected to appear in the Myanmar court later this month. (TNA)