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The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the lower courts' ruling to give former senator Chalerm Phromlert a total of 36 years in jail for the statutory rape conviction.

At the Thanyaburi Provincial Court on Tuesday, Judge Samart Ardnarong presided over the verdict reading for the rape case against Chalerm filed by five co-plaintiffs being three girls under 15 and two girls over 15.

Seeing that Chalerm's action was those committed by a well-known person with knowledge that the action was illegal, the court said he was clearly guilty as charged.

The trial led by the defendant's side did not carry sufficient weight to clear him either, therefore the court upheld the Appeal Court's ruling handing Chalerm a total of 36-year jail term.

After the verdict reading, Chalerm was taken to police custody for transfer to the Pathum Thani Prison.

In 2002 the Criminal Court found Chalerm guilty of statutory rape in separate incidents from November 2000 to January 2001 and sentenced him to four years in prison for each of four criminal counts he was found guilty of committing, totalling 16 years in jail. Chalerm then posed Bt1 million assets for a bail relaese.

The Appeal Court in 2005 added 20 years - five years for each of four counts for molestation charges that the lower court had not factored into its punishment - to Chalerm's 16-year imprisonment sentence, before releasing him on Bt2.5 million bail pending his final appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Nation

PATHUM THANI