adminBangkok – A Thai man was sentenced yesterday to two years in jail for selling books that allegedly defamed the monarchy, the latest in a string of convictions under the country’s notorious lese majeste law.
Thailand’s Court of Appeals overturned a 2014 court decision which had cleared Udomsak Wattanaworachaiwathin of any wrongdoing in a case which stretches back nine years.
A bail request was set to be heard later yesterday.
The 66-year-old was initially arrested in May 2006 for selling two books that allegedly defamed Thailand’s revered but ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej during a protest in a downtown Bangkok park. But prosecutors only filed charges against him seven years later, according to iLaw, a local legal group that monitors Thailand’s lese majeste cases.
A criminal court dismissed the charges in March 2014 after ruling that the prosecution had failed to prove that Udomsak knew the content of the books was defamatory of Thailand’s now 87-year-old monarch.
Prosecutors then appealed the ruling, resulting in yesterday’s conviction.
“The defendant’s behaviour has shown that he knew the book had insulting details about the monarchy, and he could not prove the two copies he sold belonged to other people as he had claimed,” the judge said.
But the judge said she decided to reduce the sentence from three to two years because of “useful testimony” by Udomsak.
Thailand’s monarchy is protected by one of the world’s harshest lese majeste laws and the country’s ultra-royalist military junta has significantly ramped up prosecutions since seizing power in a coup last May. — AFP.
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