Thailand-Political opponent acquitted of lèse majesté

A Thai criminal court has acquitted a leading opposition political figure of cybercrime and lèse-majesté during a Facebook live in 2021, his lawyer said Thursday.

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, 47, founder of the progressive political movement allied with the current People’s Party, located in the opposition, was accused of lèse majesté and violations of Thai laws on cybercrime during a live broadcast in January 2021. During this intervention, he had claimed that the government mismanaged its COVID-19 vaccination campaign and unfairly favored Siam Bioscience, a company owned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

He was then officially indicted in 2022.

Thailand has one of the harshest lese majeste laws in the world, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years for defendants, while offenses under the cybercrime law carry a sentence of up to five years.

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit’s lawyer, Krisadang Nutcharat, said the prosecution had 30 days to appeal the court’s verdict.

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2020, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit was banned from exercising any political activity for 10 years by the Constitutional Court due to a loan he had granted to the now dissolved Future Forward Party, predecessor of the current People’s Party.

(Panu Wongcha-um, French version by Elena Smirnova, edited by Augustin Turpin)