9/18/2019 Case | Freedom of Expression Documentation Center | น อ ลกฎหมายและค เส ภาพ   Reference 1 September 2011 Examination of prosecution witness no. 6, Capt Khirirak Maraksa The witness examinations have been rescheduled to September 2011, there was a change in the judges and the prosecutor. Judge Kamphon Rungrat arrived at 9.30 am, just be himself. The Courtroom was crowded by Thai and international media and observers from Thai and international organizations. Four defence lawyers included Mr. Saengchai Rattanaseriwong, Mr. Theeraphan Phunkhiri, Mr. Ratsada Manuratsada and Mr. Anond Nampha, and the Prosecutor was Mr. Sahachai Raksasap Capt Khirirak Marak stated that he was serving as a police inspector of the High Tech Crime Center, Region 4 Police Station, Khon Kaen He received a letter from Crime Suppression Division and was asked to investigate postings made in prachatai.com as to where it was located, under whose charge, since inappropriate posts were spotted as per Exhibit J32 (the document contains the alleged lèse-majesté statements). After investigation, he found the server of the website was base in Bangkok and the accused was the webmaster (naming the name of the accused). Capt Khirirak stated that he and the accused had not known each other personally. Before, officers from the Royal Thai Police had accessed the posts and informed him by letter asking him to carry out investigation as to where the server of the website www.prachatai.com was located. Such an investigation against the website had never been launched before. Defence lawyer’s cross examination Capt Khirirak stated that he was not aware if previously there have been any statements being used to incriminate anyone. Prior to pressing charges against Ms. Nopphawan and the accused, his agency took the lead to organize a meeting to clarify appropriate procedure, but was not sure if the accused had attended the meeting. As for the website’s blockade, his agency has never sent any instruction asking the accused to block access to the URL. He further stated that he was not a prosecution witness in the case against Ms. Nopphawan and was not part of the investigation team in the case.   1 September 2011 Examination of prosecution witness no. 7, Lt. Col. Suraphong Thammapitak, Investigating Officer in this case After the completion of examination of Capt Khirirak Marak, Judge Kamphon Rungrat instantly asked Lt. Col. Suraphong Thammapitak to testify. Lt. Col. Suraphong Thammapitak stated that he was serving as a police inspector in Operations Division 2, Royal Thai Police and was an investigating officer in lèse-majesté cases. During the investigation, he found lèse-majesté postings made in prachatai.com on 15 October 2008, then he and his team had the posts printed out and read them carefully again. After that, they concluded that the posts were inappropriate. After that, he traced the IP address by asking from the Internet Service Provider. After obtaining the IP address, he asked the webmaster and found that the poster using the username “bento”. After making an inquiry to Jasmine Internet Co., he found that owner of the username used telephone number 034 84X XXX (information cannot be disclosed) and her name was Ms. Nopphawan (information cannot be disclosed), and the application for internet service came with a copy of her ID card. He found that she used two usernames, one was bento, but he did not about another username. Lt. Col. Suraphong stated that after that he sent a letter to ask the TT&T Co. as to who the owner of the telephone number was and found out that it was registered in the name of Ms. Nopphawan. Then, he applied for warrants from the Court and made a search at the residence of Ms. Nopphawan and decided to press lèse-majesté charges against her. Defence lawyer’s cross examination Lt. Col. Suraphong, when his agency organized a consultation meeting, he was not aware if the accused or the webmaster of Prachatai had got invited to come to discuss how to monitor lèse-majesté postings. In addition, he was not aware if the IP address was generated automatically by the computer. Lt. Col. Suraphong further stated that he had no idea as to how many days Ms. Nopphawan’s post was shown on the webboard. He only knew that it was posted on 15 October 2008. 2 September 2011 Examination of prosecution witness no. 8, Pol. Maj. Gen Suraphon Thuanthong, Deputy Inspector General (Commissioned Officer 7), Central Investigation Bereau Royal Thai Police, and Investigating Officer and part of the Committee overseeing the interpretation of statements as per Exhibit J32 Judge Kamphon Rungrat arrived around 10.00 am, followed by Judge Nittaya Yaemsri. The defence lawyers included Mr. Saengchai Rattanaseriwong, Mr. Theeraphan Phunkhiri Mr. Ratsada Manuratsada and Mr. Anond Nampha, and the Prosecutor was Mr. Sahachai Raksasap   Pol. Maj. Gen Suraphon Thuanthong stated that he was assigned to carry out the investigation in cases, particularly those concerning lèse-majesté statements. He was assigned to review if the statements in the Exhibit could be deemed lèse-majesté. He did not get to see the posts in the website, but from the printout prepared by the team. After reading them, he found the statements could be deemed lèse-majesté as they described events and personalities in a way that could be construed as a statement tha defames, insults, or threatens the King, and other royalties. The characters and contents of the post could be interpreted as such. Some of the words used could be interpreted as referring to the Chitralada Royal Villa including “Wang Buppha”. Then the code no. “04” could be interpreted as referring to a radio code “904” of the Crown Prince. And his Committee decided to press charges against any persons making such lèse-majesté statements. Defence lawyer’s cross examination Pol. Maj. Gen Suraphon replied that he was not sure about the sources of the documents given to him to review. That he said the statements were deemed lèse-majesté was his personal view; there was no resolution made by the Committee on this matter. Pol. Maj. Gen Suraphon stated also that other investigating officers found that the poster of the statements in Prachatai website was Ms. Nopphawan (last name withheld). He could not recall if there was any agreement between the accused and Ms. Nopphawan. https://freedom.ilaw.or.th/en/case/112#circumstance_of_arrest 14/26