APRF Press Release
An update on the investigation concerning the fund embezzlement from the Asian Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (APRF)
The Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council (APRC) is a non-governmental international group of former leaders, foreign ministers, ministers, academicians and NGO leaders from both Asia and outside Asia offering their experiences and knowledge to promote peace and reconciliation in Asia. It is chaired by Professor Dr.Surakiart Sathirathai, former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Thailand. The Asian Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (APRF) is a foundation registered under the Thai law to receive financial support for and look after all the expenses of the APRC. The APRF is chaired by Dr. Tej Bunnag, former Foreign Minister of Thailand.
The Investigation Committee appointed by Dr. Tej Bunnag, Chairman of APRF on 25 July 2018* (*See APRF Press Release of 25 July 2018) has concluded its final report and presented it to the Chairman and to the APRF Board of Directors Meeting on 13 September 2018 for consideration.
1) The Committee invited several individuals to come forward to meet with the Committee in order to provide relevant information. The Committee members also flew to Beijing to meet with the chairman of the philanthropist company that financially supports APRF as well as his secretariat staff. The Committee wishes to thankfully acknowledge the cooperation of all the individuals concerned who spared their time to meet with the Committee. Unfortunately, however, the APRC former Secretary-General and the person who allegedly opened an ICBC Bank account where the fund was transferred and embezzled did not come to meet the Committee. In addition, the former Secretary-General, instead, contacted one of the Committee members to tell her that she should not work with the Committee and the Committee had no power to ask him for an interview. This former APRC Secretary-General had been paid by the APRF as APRC Secretary-General 150,000 baht per month since 2013. But since July 2017 till he resigned from that position in December 2017, due to financial circumstances, the APRF Board of Directors requested that his pay be adjusted to 100,000 baht.
2) The report concluded as follows:
2.1) Professor Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai, the Chairman of APRC, during his visit to Beijing between 2-4 July 2018 was informed on 3 July by the chairman of a Chinese company who in July 2017 had previously agreed to financially support the APRC activities that the company had been providing support fund payment to APRC first through a certain bank account, believed to be an APRF account in December 2017. Subsequently, it was asked to provide the sums in cash, instead of a bank transfer to the APRC former Secretary-General on several occasions after December 2017 till May 2018. However, neither the APRC nor the APRF had any knowledge of the said fund payment or any receipt thereof. Neither the said sum transferred into the said account nor the said sums of cash had ever been received by the APRF or the APRC.
2.2) The company chairman informed (and supporting evidence was later submitted to the Committee) that the sum of US$ 15,000 was transferred to an ICBC bank account in Bangkok under a certain female’s name in December 2017. According to the WeChat correspondence the company received from the former Secretary-General in November 2017, he claimed this account to be of an APRC finance officer. The former Secretary-General claimed in that WeChat correspondence that due to the Bank of Thailand rules, he requested the company to transfer the funds to this individual person’s account. But in truth, neither was there any APRC finance officer of that name nor did the APRC and the APRF know of any woman under that name at all.
2.3) According to the chairman of the company, after December 2017 until May 2018, the APRC former Secretary-General did meet with the company chairman and his staff a few more times in Dubai, Bangkok and Beijing. The company chairman further informed that during those occasions cash to support the APRC activities had been provided instead and funds were no longer transferred to the said account.
2.4) Throughout that period of time, neither the APRF nor the APRC ever received the funds transferred nor any cash given from the company at all. On the contrary, since November 2017, the APRC Chairman was informed by the former Secretary-General that the latter was unable to contact this company chairman at all and claimed that this chairman might even have been blacklisted by the Chinese Government. And for that reason, the APRC has lost contact with the company chairman completely until June 2018 where an attempt was made by a different channel, bypassing the former APRC Secretary-General, to re-establish a contact with the secretary of the company chairman which finally led to a meeting between the APRC Chairman and the company chairman in Beijing, 3 July 2018 and proved that the certain chairman had not been blacklisted as claimed.
2.5) Up until meeting with the APRC Chairman in July 2018, the company chairman was not aware at all that the former APRC Secretary-General had resigned from that position since January 2018 and had believed that all the funds had been provided through him to the APRF for the APRC activities.
3) Regrettably, despite receiving the Committee’s letter of invitation, the former APRC Secretary-General did not communicate back to the Committee, nor cooperate or meet with the Committee to give his account of the incident.
4) The APRF Board, having considered the report in details, believing that there was an act that led to the Foundation’s funds having been embezzled, decided to take the necessary legal actions to protect the good reputation of the Foundation and the APRC.
5) Certain legal actions have been taken by filing the case with the Thai Police Crime Suppression Division on 28 September and the Department of Special Investigation on 4 October 2018.
6) The APRF Board of Directors resolved at its meeting on 22 October 2018 to issue this press release to the public.
Asian Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (APRF)
22 October 2018
อ่านฉบับภาษาไทย : APRF แจ้งเอาผิดอดีตเลขาฯ ยักยอกเงินบริจาค
