Former director of the National Office of Buddhism, Nopparat Benjawattananon, who has evaded prosecution on corruption charges in Thailand for about eight years, has recently been arrested by US marshals in Texas.
According to an informed source in the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), Nopparat was booked by a US marshal at a hospital in Texas on Friday. He is expected to appear in court there for a hearing on his extradition, being sought by the NACC via the Office of Attorney-General.
According to the NACC, Nopparat and several other senior National Office of Buddhism officials are accused of demanding kickbacks from several temples in the provinces, in return for subsidies allocated to the temples by the office.
The subsidies were intended for temple repairs and renovations, promotion of temple activities and for Buddhist study.
It is alleged that corrupt National Office of Buddhism officials had approached temple abbots, offering them subsidies, to be sought from the Budget Bureau, on the condition that, once the subsidies were received by the temples, a large portion of the money would be handed to the corrupt officials as kickbacks.
Besides Nopparat, a former National Office of Buddhism director, Phanom Sornsilp, and his former deputy, Phranom Kongpikul, have been implicated in the corrupt practice, along with a number of abbots.
