A Thai court convicted two prominent members of the royalist “Yellow Shirt” protest movement yesterday of defaming fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra by accusing him of insulting the monarchy.
Media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul and Soracha Pornudomsak, who together hosted a show on Sondhi’s pro-Yellow television channel, were each handed fines and a six-month jail sentence suspended for two years by a Bangkok criminal court.
The case stemmed from taped comments made by Sondhi in 2007 to Yellow Shirts in the US about his archenemy, Thaksin, the hero of the rival anti-government “Red Shirts.”
The footage was later aired on Sondhi and Soracha’s Thai show.
“The actions by both defendants were slanderous, so the court sentenced them each to six months jail and a 20,000 baht [US$640] fine,” the judge said, adding that the pair would be on probation for two years.
Thaksin, who lives abroad to escape a jail term for corruption but remains an influential and divisive figure back home, sued the pair via lawyers in Thailand.
Insulting the monarchy is a serious charge in Thailand. Under its strict lese majeste rules anyone can file a complaint, and police are duty-bound to investigate it.
In a tangle of Thai litigation, Sondhi — who founded the Yellow movement — has himself been indicted on lese majeste accusations, for quoting from the speech of a hardcore member of the rival Red Shirts in 2008.
A criminal court has accepted to hear the case, which is postponed until Nov. 1.
The protester whose remarks he repeated was sentenced in August last year to 18 years in prison for insulting the royal family at rallies seeking the return of Thaksin.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS