BANGKOK: Five Italian students and their supervisor apologised to a Thai woman known as Sugus at Samrae Metropolitan Police Station after a dispute over their conduct on a BTS train.
Police fined five members of the group, and both sides agreed to settle the matter and pursue no further legal action against each other.
The incident began when the group allegedly spoke loudly and behaved inappropriately aboard the train. After Sugus politely intervened, she was met with rude language and gestures, including a raised middle finger.
The exchange also reportedly included the remark: “Sorry that we brought money to your country.”
The incident sparked widespread anger among Thai social-media users, prompting Sugus to file a police complaint.
Investigators later summoned all six members of the group to meet Sugus at the police station, with an interpreter present. The discussions lasted more than an hour, during which the students and their supervisor expressed regret, acknowledged that their behaviour had been inappropriate and offered sincere apologies.
Sugus later posted a video on her TikTok account, @1234aaawry, showing all six members of the group raising their hands in a wai and apologising.
“Are you apologising to me?” Sugus asked.
The woman in red replied: “I apologise to you, to all Thai people and to your family.”
The others also offered their apologies.
Under the settlement, both sides agreed to delete photographs and video clips stored on their phones or posted on social media. Sugus said she would remove images of the Italian group in accordance with the agreement.
She also said that, with the case concluded, the Italian side would not be able to use the incident later as grounds for a claim or legal action against her over her efforts to defend herself.
Police charged five of the six group members with insulting another person in their presence and fined each 1,000 baht.
The person seen making the middle-finger gesture in the video faced an additional charge of committing an indecent act in public, bringing the total to two charges and 2,000 baht in fines.
Police then completed the legal process, formally bringing the dispute to an end.
In her account of the settlement, Sugus referred to the 1,000-baht fine and said police had recommended the amount to conclude the case quickly, although the maximum fine was 10,000 baht.
She acknowledged that the penalty might not be considered severe by the group but said she respected the officers’ discretion and advice.
Sugus said she recognised the sincerity and remorse behind the apology and believed that people who admitted wrongdoing and apologised should be given another chance.- The Nation/ANN
