PM : I’m the man in the video

Written by Writer on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

POLITICS

PM : I’m the man in the video

MANILA : Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat has admitted for the first time that he is the man in a scandalous internet video clip - but “only in some parts”.

The clip had been partly doctored to discredit him, Mr Somchai said before meeting Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Manila yesterday.

The video, taken by an unknown cameramen in March this year, was posted on the internet late last month.

It is still on the Manager website - a mouthpiece of the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy.

The 25-minute video features a slightly built man who appears to be in his 60s going with young women to restaurants, a shopping mall and a love motel.

The same man is shown lunching with a middle-aged woman resembling Mr Somchai’s wife, Yaowapa, and a narrator refers to him as the “target”.

Viewers were convinced the man, who wears glasses, is the prime minister.

Mr Somchai said the video had damaged his reputation. He said he knew who had produced it and posted it on the internet, but would not press charges because he had already forgiven them.

Mr Somchai dismissed rumours he planned to meet former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, his brother-in-law, while in Manila.”If you run into Thaksin, please tell him that I miss him,” Mr Somchai said.

Bangkok Post
Tuesday November 11, 2008