The justice minister has approved parole for Somchai Khunploem, the notorious Chon Buri godfather known as Kamnan Poh, as he has stage-4 cancer, the chief of the Corrections Department said on Friday.
Narat Sawetanant, the director-general of the department, said he proposed the special parole to Justice Minister Prajin Juntong who approved it on Thursday.
Somchai, 80, qualified for special parole because he had stage-4 cancer and was older than 70 years, Pol Col Narat said.
Local media reports said that he had been treated at Police General Hospital in Bangkok for about a year.
In 2012, the Supreme Court sentenced Somchai to 25 years in jail for masterminding the murder of Prayoon Sitthichoke, also known as Kamnan Yoon, at a wedding in March 2003.
He was arrested in the following year while travelling out of Bangkok to Chon Buri after receiving treatment at a hospital in the capital.
