A member of Thailand’s Cabinet said Tuesday that an Australian newspaper report that he was imprisoned there for four years on a drug smuggling conviction was concocted by his political enemies, and he has no plans to resign. Deputy Agriculture Minister Thammanat Prompao was responding to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald, based on court records and interviews, that he was arrested in 1993 and convicted of conspiracy to import heroin. Rumors of Thammanat’s arrest circulated in July before he was sworn into his post in Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government.
