Fake palace statement fabricated here: police

“It clearly shows that the document was created in Thailand and police are now tracing it to find the source,” Pol Lt-General Prawut Thawornsiri said.

He added that investigators are convinced the act is politically motivated. 

Prawut went on to say that apart from a man being arrested for widely disseminating the fake document online, police will also take legal action against those who spread the message despite knowing that the content was false. 

Kris Buddeechin, described as a red shirt, has been detained under martial law since Wednesday after being arrested at his home in Phetchabun province for widely sharing the document online.

Meanwhile, red-shirt leader Jatuporn Promphan asked yesterday if the junta was provoking the red shirts into a fight by blaming them for the fake statement and the double explosions in downtown Bangkok last Sunday.

“Do they [the junta] want to create chaos and pressure us into going out to fight?” Jatuporn said on the red-shirt affiliated Peace TV. 

Jatuporn, chairman of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), said Kris was a “cyber victim” and criticised the uneven handling of those who spread the fake document on the Internet.

Red-shirt lawyer Winyat Chatmontri yesterday also called on the authorities to ensure Kris’s constitutional rights are preserved while in detention. 

UDD sent Winyat to visit Kris at the Eleventh Infantry Division yesterday, but the lawyer said he was not allowed to meet the suspect. Hence, he called on the military regime to guarantee the suspect’s constitutional rights even if he is arrested under martial law. 

Jatuporn, meanwhile, lambasted the authorities on Peace TV yesterday morning, claiming that nobody from the yellow-shirt ASTV Manager website – which allegedly reproduced the fake document and reported it as news – was arrested. 

He also accused the military government of exploiting anti-monarchist feelings exclusively against red shirts and compared the incident to the so-called anti-monarchist mind-map produced in 2010 under the Abhisit Vejjajiva administration.

Jatuporn acknowledged that Kris is a red shirt and said he had met him earlier and is sure that he is not the man who created the fake document. However, he added that if Kris was guilty, then he should be prosecuted as all red shirts are loyal to the monarchy. He said the authorities should also enquire with ASTV Manager website as to where they got the fake document, again questioning why nobody from ASTV had been arrested.

“Are we applying the same law?” Jatuporn asked, adding that nobody would passively take a beating without retaliating.

Meanwhile, a red-shirt leader from Phetchabun yesterday defended Kris as just being someone who happened to have passed on a fake document. 

Sitthichai Tah-aj, former chairman of the Phetchabun chapter of the UDD, said yesterday that Kris, 26, who used to work with him, was not the mastermind behind the document, but had merely clicked “Like” on Facebook and shared it with his Facebook “friends”.

Kris, a third-year student at Phetchbun Rajabhat University, was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday at his home by a team of police and military officers and brought to the Eleventh Infantry Division in Bangkok for interrogation.

Sitthichai, also a lawyer, said he does not think Kris has the ability to fabricate such a document, adding that he had warned the red shirts to be careful in sharing controversial opinions or documents as they are being particularly targeted by the authorities.

However, he acknowledged that Kris was rather radical when it comes to politics.