A criminal court has handed an additional eight-year jail term to a man who was previously sentenced to six years of imprisonment for lèse majesté.
On 10 October 2016, the criminal court on Ratchadapisek Rd, Bangkok, handed an eight-year jail term to Piya J., a 48 year-old programmer, for an offence under Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the lèse majesté law. He was accused of sending two emails with messages deemed defamatory to the King to Bangkok Bank under an online identity ‘Vincent Wang’.
In addition to Article 112, Piya was also charged under Article 14 of the Computer Crime Code, which forbids the importation of illegal computer content. Initially, the prosecutor indicted Piya of four counts under the lèse majesté law. However, the court only sentenced him on one count, citing weak evidence.
Earlier in January 2016, the criminal court sentenced Piya to six years imprisonment under Article 112 for allegedly posting lèse majesté comments along with pictures of the King on 27-28 July 2013 under the Facebook profile “Pongsathorn Bantorn”.
Piya now has to serve 14 years jail term in total. He will submit a request to appeal both lèse majesté cases.
Piya was arrested on 11 December 2014. He was a former officer of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). He has never participated in any political demonstrations and said that he has no interests in politics.
During a press conference after the arrest, the police claimed that Piya admitted that he posted the allegedly lèse majesté content. They added that Piya has changed his registered name six times since 2001 and that he illegally used his old national identification cards.
Despite weak evidence, the court cited the testimony of Achariya Ruangratpong, one of the plaintiffs, as primary evidence on the case. The plaintiff told the court that Piya used to adopt the name ‘Vincent Wang’ as his online identity which the accused admitted to be true.
At the preliminary hearing held in camera on May 2015, Piya denied the allegations and said that the alleged lèse majesté Facebook profile was not his.
Since his arrest, Piya has consistently denied his involvement in the lèse majesté Facebook profile. Although the picture on the profile was his, he claims this was taken from the defendant’s Twitter and Google Plus accounts.
The only incriminating evidence in this case is the image of the King captured from a mobile phone. The computer forensic evidence and IP addresses were not considered on the case.
The case resembles several examples of false Facebook identities.
In mid November 2014, the authorities arrested Jaruwan E., 26, Anon, 22, and Chat, 20, lèse majesté suspects accused of being involved in the Facebook page “Jaruwan E. (full surname)” which posted explicit lèse majesté content and photos of Jaruwan.
Jaruwan denied all allegations, saying that she did not have control over the page. She believed that the page was a ploy by a disappointed admirer to cause her trouble, suspecting that “Chat”, a friend of "Anon" her boyfriend, was behind the Facebook page. The military then arrested the two men, one of whom cannot read or write.
In February 2015, the three were released after being detained for three months as the military prosecutors decided not to indict them.
Thai Netizen Network (TNN), a civil society organisation promoting internet freedom, recorded in 2011 several cases of copycat Facebook pages/profiles that posted explicit lèse majesté material as a ploy to ironically cause trouble to ultra-royalists.
Piya J. at the Criminal Court on Ratchadapisek Rd, Bangkok (Photo from iLaw)
