9/18/2019 Case | Freedom of Expression Documentation Center | น อ ลกฎหมายและค เส ภาพ   Lt. Col. Nitipat stated that he could remember if he had informed the accused that the documentary evidence the accused gave him as a witness in the case against Ms. Reference Nopphawan was being used as documentary evidence in the case against the accused herself, too. Lt. Col. Nitipat could not remember if all the statements in Exhibit J30, pages 2-8, appeared in the webboard. Lt. Col. Boonlert Kalayanamitra should know this well. In addition, he could not recall if the testimony made by Mr. Aree was being used as part of the inquiry report against the accused, when she was an alleged offender or not. He also had no idea why charges had not been filed together between the accused and Ms. Nopphawan, maybe because there was no evidence, or whatever reasons. When asked with this question, Lt. Col. Nitipat looked very hesitant. Eventually, the Court asked the same question more succinctly and punctually, and the witness replied that he did no know anything about it. The witness examination was adjourned at 12.15 am. 9 September 2011 Examination of prosecution witness no. 11, Lt. Col. Boonlert Kalayanamitra, an inquiry officer in charge of the case, Crime Suppression Division, Royal Thai Police. Judge Nittaya Yaemsri arrived in the courtroom around 9.45 am, followed by Judge Kamphon Rungrat who was about five minutes late, nevertheless, he was the person who record testimonies made by all witnesses. The witness is part of the investigating team at the Crime Suppression Division, Royal Thai Police. Lt. Col. Boonlert Kalayanamitra, 49 years, beginning at 9.45 am, stated that he received a complaint from ML Panadda Diskul, incumbent Governor of Chiang Mai, on 24 October 2008. In a formal letter to the Royal Thai Police, the Governor asked for investigation regarding the posting of lèse-majesté statements in Prachatai. He could not recall if all statements in Exhibit J32, coupled with the complaint made by ML Panadda, had been supplied by ML Panadda himself, or had been obtained by MICT officers later. After receiving the complaint and documents on 5 November 2008, Mr. Aree Jiworarak, MICT officer, complained to the Royal Thai Police asking them to take action against the perpetrators. Of hundreds of URLs listed in the complaint, he found nine which could be deemed an insult to the monarchy. All the nine URLs were all posts made in Prachatai website and Mr. Aree also supplied him evidence regarding how the statements had been inputted into the website. Then, he invited the accused to ask her questions as a “witness”. Initially, the accused admitted that the poster of the statements was “bento” and she admitted that she was Prachatai’s webmaster. In addition, he also interrogated Mr. Aree as a witness in this case, too, and found from him that the statements as per Exhibit J32 were put online for up to 20 days. After ascertaining the facts, the Investigating Team applied for court warrants deeming that the accused could be held liable as per Section 15 of the 2007 Computer Crime Act. Then, a search warrant was also applied for as per Exhibit J5. Lt. Col. Boonlert further testified that the MICT officers were asked to apply for an order from the Court to copy data from the accused’s computer (Exhibit J6). In addition, the accused was invited to the Crime Suppression Division and a record was made in the police’s daily journal and charges were pressed against the accused (Exhibit J9). The accused was then informed of detail of the charges including the URLs (Exhibit J10). After copying data from the accused’s computer, the data was transferred to the Criminal Record Division for further verification. After receiving results from the Criminal Record Division, he started to interrogate concerned witnesses including Mr. Chakaraphan Charoenphon, staff member of Jasmine Internet, Co., the ISP. He was asked as to who was the owner of the telephone line used for connecting to internet service used by “buffalo boy” to post a link to another webboard on Prachatai webboard? In addition, Lt. Col. Boonlert also stated that he got to ask question to the founder of Prachatai website or the accused, too, though she plead not guilty to all charges. Defence lawyer’s cross examination Lt. Col. Boonlert replied that he could remember if there were just nine URLs in the complaint submitted to him by Mr. Aree regarding the charges against Prachatai website. He could not remember at all how many of the URLs. Lt. Col. Boonlert stated that legal actions have also been initiated against other URLs, but they are at the investigation level. As for the printout received from Mr. Aree, the police officer said he had never compared it with the original pages in the website. Asked if he ever noted that in the documentary evidence, the printouts, on certain pages, the URL address appeared on the left, some on the right. Was it possible that the URL addresses were typed up by the officers, and were not originally shown on the actual website? Lt. Col. Boonlert replied that he had no idea about this, since he was not an expert in technology and did not have in-depth information. When he received documents with a list of URLs from Mr. Aree, the blockade of access to the URLs had been put in place. But Lt. Col. Boonlert denied having any roles in applying for the Court order to block the access. He was aware of the blockade, but not for how long. Lt. Col. Boonlert stated that he failed to inform the accused of her rights when inviting her to give information as a witness, since he still treated her as a witness then.  In addition, he could not remember if Mr. Jon Ungphakorn was also a witness in the case against Ms. Nopphawan, since he did not interrogate Mr. Jon himself. The job was given to other officers. Lt. Col. Boonlert stated that the accused was asked to acknowledge the charges and she was given explanations of each count filed against her. Detail as to when the posts were found online was given and the accused was pointed to various statements, though the accused was not informed of the URLs of the allegedly lèse-majesté posts. As for the computer evidence obtained from the accused, they were well kept and sealed to prevent any doctoring of information, prior to sending it to the Criminal Record Division The witness examination was adjourned at 12.15 pm. Throughout the examination, Lt. Col. Boonlert failed to speak in the clear and often had to look at documents before giving any replies. One of the defence lawyers, Mr. Ratsada Manuratsada made a protest, but the Court said it was ok since it helped to save time.  The atmosphere during the witness examination was rather tense, and then the defence lawyers had to give concessions. While, the atmosphere was tense, Mr. Sahachai Raksasap, the prosecutor, remained calm. Defence Witness Hearings 20 September 2011 Examination of witness no.1,  Mr. Jon Ungphakorn, co-founder of Prachatai website and currently  member of the Subcommittee on Civil and Political Rights, Nationa Human Rights Commission https://freedom.ilaw.or.th/en/case/112#circumstance_of_arrest 16/26