The Thai military court sentenced a man accused of defaming the Thai monarchy on a social network to 30 years in jail in an in camera trial. The ruling is the heaviest jail term on lese majeste cases ever recorded.
On Friday morning, 7 August 2015, the Military Court of Bangkok sentenced Pongsak S., a suspect of offences under Article 112 or the lese majeste law and Article 14 of the Computer Crime Act (importing of illegal content into a the computer system), to 60 years imprisonment.
The court gave 10 years prison term to each of the six lese majeste counts he was charged with. Since the suspect pleaded guilty as charged, the court, however, halved the sentence to 30 years in jail.
Pongsak used Facebook under the name “Sam Parr” to distribute messages and images defaming the monarchy, which he copied from other sources. At the press conference in January 2015, he pleaded guilty to all charges and said he did so because he was instigated by some Facebook friends. He also said that he went to anti-establishment red-shirt demonstrations.
He told Prachatai that he was tricked into meeting a decoy who had been talking to him via facebook under name ‘Numbannok Rak Seri’ (a free country boy) in the northern province of Tak and was arrested on 30 December 2014 at the bus transit in Phitsanulok Province.
“It turned out when I met the guy at the military base later that he was an officer out of uniform,” said Phongsak.
He added that the interrogative officers forced him into giving all his facebook and email passwords after his arrest.
The judges read the verdict in camera, saying that the case is sensitive to the public morale since it is related to the revered Thai monarchy.
Pongsak was on the list of 17 people summoned by the junta on 9 June 2014 and was charged with violating the junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) summons by not reporting in.
In March 2015, the military court sentenced him to six months in prison for not reporting to the coup-makers in 2014, but the jail term was suspended.