Thailand to indict influential Buddhist abbot

By Max Constant

BANGKOK

Thailand is to indict an influential abbot of a wealthy Buddhist temple on charges of illegally receiving money from a scandal-ridden credit fund.

Local media reported Police Lieutenant Somnuek Siangkong as saying Wednesday that the office will indict the 72-year-old monk with four others.

"The office of the attorney-general has decided to indict Phra Dhammachayo, the abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple, and four other defendants for allegedly laundering money and receiving stolen property in connection with the Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative (KCUC) embezzlement scandal," the Bangkok Post reported him as saying.

Prior to KCUC going bankrupt in 2014, the former chairman of the cooperative, Supachai Srisupa-Aksorn, issued $34 million worth of checks to Dhammachayo.

As a result, thousands of customers lost funds they had invested in the scheme.

In the last two years, Dhammachayo has repeatedly been summoned by police for interrogation, but he has refused, saying he is very ill and cannot move from his temple -- a giant golden flying saucer-shaped building in a northern Bangkok suburb.

In June, hundreds of police officers tried to arrest him at the temple, but were prevented from doing so by thousands of followers who blocked access.

On Wednesday, Thailand's Department of Special Investigation said it would move to arrest Dhammachayo, once it has received official instruction from the attorney general.

The Post quoted department Director-General Paisit Wongmuang as saying on receiving official instruction, the DSI would launch an operation to arrest the abbot.

He said a plan had already been prepared, and he believed Dhammachayo was still inside Dhammakaya grounds, even though it had been rumored the monk had fled abroad.

Founded in 1972 by a group of young monks and a nun, Dhammakaya uses modern marketing techniques to attract followers and propagates a materialistic and unorthodox version of Buddhist teachings.

It has become by far the country's most financially powerful temple, and is very influential with the Supreme Sangha Council, the committee of senior monks that lead Thai Buddhism.

Opponents, however, accuse it of distorting Buddhist principles, of propagating a materialistic version of the Buddha’s teachings and equating money donated to the institution to merit acquired in the afterlife.

Over the last two decades, Dhammachayo has been implicated in numerous financial and land-related scandals, but has never attended court.

In 1999, the then-leader of the Thai Buddhist religion, Phra Nyanasamvara, wrote to the Supreme Sangha Council asking them to defrock Dhammachayo because of a land-purchase scandal but his order was never implemented.