October 16, 2015
BANGKOK (AFP) - An elderly Thai man already jailed for royal defamation was Friday sentenced to a further 18 months in prison under controversial lese majeste laws for graffiti scrawled in a Bangkok toilet last year, his lawyer said.
Ophas Chansuksei, a 68-year-old pin-badge vendor, is currently serving an 18-month prison term handed down in March over graffiti deemed critical of the monarchy as well as the junta that seized power from an elected government in May 2014.
On Friday, a military court in the capital sentenced him to a further 18 months over similar graffiti scribbled in another toilet on the same day last October in a shopping mall in eastern Bangkok.
"Investigators separated his case into two because he wrote on two separate toilet doors," said his lawyer Sasinan Thamnithinan from the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
Ophas was originally sentenced to three years but the prison term was halved because he admitted to the crime and will start the new sentence once the existing one ends in January, she added.
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 87, is protected by one of the world's toughest royal defamation rules under which anyone convicted of insulting the king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in prison on each count.
Both local and international media must heavily censor themselves when reporting on these cases because even repeating details of the charges could mean breaking the law.
Lese majeste cases have skyrocketed under military rule.
The vast majority of recent convictions have been brought over comments made online -- including a record 30-year sentence for one man over the content of six Facebook posts.
