Frank G Anderson, an American expat in Nakhon Ratchasima and the editor of the Korat Post, has been sued for what he wrote on his website in Dec 2008 about Pol Lt Col Watthanasak's legal actions against people who he deemed guilty of the crime of lèse majesté.

Anderson, also a regular contributor to the UPI Asia news website, received the first summons from police on or around 15 Feb.  Akbar Khan, a British citizen, had filed a defamation case against him with the Crime Suppression Division for what he wrote on the Korat Post website at 10:00 pm on 18 December 2008.

‘In support of his claim, according to police, Khan introduced himself as a translator and provided police with a Thai language excerpt of the original English that appeared online that he says was defamatory to him,’ Anderson said.

Immediately upon receiving the first summons, Anderson removed all potentially offending material from the US-based server and sought on his hard disk what might be the problem but could not find anything. 

Akbar and Watanasak never took a single step in contacting Anderson over the 14 months between publication and the suit to demand or request editing or removal of offensive material, he said.

Anderson was instructed to appear before Phahonyothin police on 19 March 2010 at 1 pm, to respond to a second criminal defamation allegation within a month, this time from Pol. Lt. Col. Watanasak Mungkijkandee, who, in 2008, had filed lèse majesté cases against red-shirt leader Jakrapob Penkair, BBC correspondent Jonathan Head and the board of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand.