The Civil Court has ordered Supachai Srisupa-aksorn, jailed former chairman of Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative (KCUC), to repay 9.64 billion baht he embezzled from the cooperative.
The court ruled in favour of the plaintiff, the KCUC, and against Supachai and other former officials of the cooperative.
When Supachai was chairman from Jan 1, 2009, to May 30, 2012, he wrote 878 cheques withdrawing 11.37 billion baht of KCUC funds, after lying about the cooperative's profitability. Some were made out to himself as "payment in advance", most to other individuals and companies, including Wat Dhammakaya.
The Civil Court ruled on Wednesday that KCUC had the right to demand the repayment of 9.64 billion baht, as the remainder of the claim had yet to be verified.
It was the second ruling in a civil case over Supachai's embezzlement of depositors' money at what was Thailand's biggest savings cooperative.
The Civil Court ruled on the first case in November 2016, ordering Supachai and three other people to repay 3.81 billion baht.
Supachai has been in prison since 2016 for criminal offences stemming from the embezzlement.
The Criminal Court initially handed down a 16-year jail sentence for siphoning off 22.1 million baht in total from the cooperative on eight occasions from April 10 to Oct 8, 2013. The Appeal Court later reduced the term to seven years, because he confessed.
The Civil Court is also hearing two other lawsuits against Supachai, in which public prosecutors sought court orders to confiscate assets from him and accomplices worth a total of 1.67 billion baht for alleged public fraud.
