Court finds web-board user guilty of lese majeste
THE APPEALS Court yesterday overturned the verdict issued by the Court of First Instance, which found Noppawan Tang-udomsuk not guilty for allegedly posting a remark deemed defamatory to the monarchy on the now-defunct Prachatai.com web-board five years a
In the latest verdict, Noppawan was found guilty of posting the defamatory comment under the name “bento” and given five years in jail under the lese majeste law and the Computer Crimes Act. Later yesterday, the court granted her bail on a Bt1-million guarantee.
In January 2011, the lower court had found Noppawan not guilty because it said the IP address could not be directly linked to her as others also had access to her computer.
However, the Appeals Court said that experts from the Information and Communications Technology Minis-try and the cyber police had insisted the IP address belonged to Noppawan’s notebook computer and that a password was needed to access the web-board. They also said the defendant used her registered phone number when she applied to become a member of the web-board in 2007. The experts also said that it is very difficult to forge an IP address.
Meanwhile, the prosecutors want the court to punish the defendant severely in order to set an example.
