Thai police have arrested a businessman for posting lèse majesté messages on his Facebook account.

The man, whose given name begins with T and surname with S, was accused of using two Facebook accounts under  “Yai Daengdueat” (ใหญ่ แดงเดือด) to post three messages deemed to defame the King, according to the police custody petition submitted to the military court on Thursday.  

The first alleged message, posted on 25 July, mainly criticized the King’s sufficiency economy. It also compares the Bhutanese monarchy to Thailand’s.

The second alleged message talked about a behind-the-scenes story of the coup d’état. It was posted on 13 September.

The third message, published in early November, talked about the fate of “Uncle Somchai,” of which the police say “The use of Uncle Somchai is widely known among Internet users and red shirts to refer to His Majesty the King.” Defaming Uncle Somchai is therefore lèse majesté.

The military arrested the man, 58, and his wife on 18 December. The man was detained for interrogation at a military base in Bangkok for five days, while his wife was detained for one night. The military court issued an arrest warrant on the fifth day of military detention when he was transferred to the custody of the Crime Suppression Division.

During the military interrogation, the man confessed and was forced to provide passwords to email and social network accounts.

After 48 hours in police custody, the police on Thursday submitted a custody petition to the military court. The family of the suspect also submitted a 400,000 baht bail request.

The court, as expected, denied the bail request, saying that the charges carry a high penalty and that the suspect might flee.   

He will be detained at the Bangkok Remand Prison from Thursday night. 

The man graduated from a Faculty of Engineering with second class honours and lives in northern Bangkok.