---

High-profile murderer Serm Sakhonrat has had his prison sentence reduced and will be a free man on December 18, while the Corrections Department will today release 4,500 inmates jailed in Bangkok and nearby provinces under the amnesty decree.

The amnesty was to mark His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej's seventh-cycle birthday on December 5.

Serm was sentenced in 1998 to life in prison for murdering his girlfriend, and had his jail term reduced five times after 2004. The latest amnesty further cuts his term. He will now be released on December 18.

Meanwhile, other inmates also received jail-term reductions, including former crime buster Lt-General Chalor Kerdtes, who was convicted for the double murder and abduction of Srithanakhan family members. His life sentence was reduced to 50 years.

Former Chulalongkorn Hospital doctor Wisut Boonkasemsanti, who initially got the death sentence for killing his wife Phassaporn Boonkasemsanti and then had his sentence commuted to life, will now have his prison term reduced to 21 years after this year's amnesty.

http://www.nation...71447.html