Ex-lèse majesté convict sent to prison for failing to report to junta

The court sentenced a former lèse majesté convict to two months and 20 days in prison for failing to report to the junta in June.

The ex-lèse majesté convict is the first to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for failing to report to the junta. Unlike others who pleaded guilty to defying coup orders, the court did not suspend the jail term because he was once convicted under lèse majesté law in 2009. 

Dusit District Court of Bangkok on Thursday morning sentenced Nut S., an anti-coup activist accused of defying a coup order which summoned him to report to the coup-makers in June, to two months and 20 days in prison.

However, the court reduced the penalty by half to one month and ten days because the defendant pleaded guilty.  

Nut was charged with disobeying Order No. 5/2014, which summoned him to report to the junta in late May. He was summoned by the military merely because he was convicted of lèse majesté prior to the coup. 

During the hearing at the military court in Bangkok on 17 December 2014, he pleaded guilty as charged and the court ordered the Justice Ministry’s Probation Department to observe his behaviour and submit a report to the court within 30 days.

Nut was arrested and detained by the military from 7-14 June 2014. However, on 28 June, he was arrested again and brought to the Crime Suppression Division on a charge of defying junta orders.

During a preliminary hearing on 2 September 2014, the court stated that the case was not serious and that the police and defendant could request the military to have the case dropped. The prosecutor, however, asked the court to give him a harsh sentence.

In 2009, Nut was charged with lèse majesté under Article 112 and under Article 14 of the Computer Crime Act for sending three lèse majesté video clips to Emilio Esteban, whom the police identified as an Englishman residing in Spain. Esteban ran the now-defunct ‘Stop Lèse Majesté’ blog.

 

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