BANGKOK – In an unprecedented legal move, a Supreme Court judge has inserted the entire text of his unwritten movie screenplay into the verdict of the Thaksin Shinawatra assets case.
About 90 minutes after the verdict reading began at 1 p.m., court reporters noted that the words coming from presiding judge Pongthep Siripongtiganont no longer seemed to bear any connection to the case, or to legal matters of any kind whatsoever.
Instead, the judge appeared to be telling a story about a murder mystery that takes place on an overnight train to Yala, wherein a hard-boiled detective, battling alcoholism in the wake of his partner’s unsolved murder, unwittingly interrupts a kidnapping of the young daughter of a corrupt shipping baron, becoming both the crime’s only witness and its reluctant lead investigator.
Presiding judge Pongthep Siripongtiganont also appears to be performing both character and narrator voices, as well as providing sound effects by rattling his desk drawers to simulate the passing train tracks and pounding his gavel for gunshots.
At press time, court reporters described the judge’s story as “riveting.”
