Bangkok (AP) — A court sentenced a human rights lawyer to 16 months in prison on Wednesday, finding him guilty of sedition for material he posted online but dropping charges of royal defamation.
Prawet Prapanukul had been indicted on 10 royal defamation charges and three sedition charges. He has said he would not appoint a lawyer to defend himself in the case he called “a political issue, not a legal one.”
The Ratchada Criminal Court in Bangkok sentenced him to five months for each sedition count and an additional month for refusing to let officials take his fingerprint identification, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said.
Prawet had been a lawyer for supporters of the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006. He was arrested last year in connection with material he had posted on Facebook about Thailand’s 1932 revolution, which turned the country from an absolute monarchy into a constitutional one.
