Case

Case name

Nopawan: Bento

Illegal dissemination of information Lèse-majesté

Name of persons / Name of Media

Nopawan T.

Status of Accused

Dismissed

Offense / order

Article 14 (1) Computer Related Crime Act, Article 14 (3) Computer Related Crime Act, Article 14 (5) Computer Related Crime Act, Article 112 Criminal Code

Summary

Nopawan was arrest in January 2009 and accused to disseminated message that defame and insult against the Queen and the Heir Apparent in Prachatai webboard under pseudonym 'Bento'. The defendant denied all charges

The Court of the First Instance dismissed her charge given that there is no eye witness to see her posted the message. Only IP Address is not sufficient to identified the real user. Later, the Court of Appeal gave her 5 years in prison given that the IP Address is an important evidence to prove the user which conform to the information of the defendant.

Basic information

Background of accused

Nopawan T. graduated from the Faculty of Accounting, Bangkok University. During the case she was the director of a motocycle's parts producer and distributor company.

Complainant / Plaintiff

Complainant: Pol. Lt. Col. Bunloet Kalayanamit, Investigating Officer, Crime Suppression Division
Prosecutor: Office of the Special Prosecutor, Criminal Case Section 8.

Legal Claims

Offence against security, Illegal dissemination of information, Lèse-majesté

Form of restriction on freedom

Charge filed
Type of media

Forum / Web board
Province

Bangkok
Court

Criminal Court
Black case

คำอธิบายคดีดำ ภาษาอังกฤษ

No: อ.1257/2552 Date: 2009-04-10
Red case

คำอธิบายดคีแดง ภาษาอังกฤษ

No: อ.599/2554 Date: 2011-01-31

Details of offence according to charge

Nopawan was accused for posted and disseminated insulting and defamatory comments to defame HM the Queen and HRH the Crown Prince on Prachatai's webboard under pseudonym "bento" on 15 October 2008

Circumstance of arrest

16 January 2009

Police arrested the defendant and seized property comprising 1 desktop computer, 1 notebook computer and 2 flash drives together with 1 document printed from the Prachatai website expressing insulting and defamatory comments in this case. All property was sent to the investigating officers. During the investigation the defendant was detained for 10 days from the time of her arrest at the Central Women’s Prison.

Progress of case

16 January 2009

Police officers arrested Miss Nopawan and seized property comprising computers and flash drives, totalling 4 items at her workplace. Miss Nopawan was taken to the Crime Suppression Division and detained in the cells for 1 night.

17 January 2009

Pol.Lt. Col. Bunloet Kalayanamit of the Crime Suppression Division took Miss Nopawan to the holding cells of the Criminal Court. The investigating officers opposed bail resulting in Miss Nopawan being detained at the Central Women’s Prison for 10 days.

10 April 2009

The Office of the Attorney-General as prosecutor filed charges against Miss Nopawan for offences under Sections 14 (1) (3) and (5) of the 2007 Computer-related Crime Act and Sections 33 and 112 of the Criminal Code.

18 April 2010

The witnesses examination began

11 May 2010

The witnesses examination concluded

31 January 2011

The court delivered the verdict

The court considered that this case involved only the issue of whether the defendant was the person who posted the comments or not. The prosecution relied solely on the IP address and information on the telephone connection as evidence. But no witness testimony confirmed that the defendant was on fact the person who posted the comments.

From the evidence of telephone records it could be seen that the aforementioned telephone number was connected to the internet for almost the entire day when the incident occurred. But the message in the charge was unlikely to have taken much time to post. The police official who examined the location, which is a factory, found many computers, all of which were connected to the internet system but it was not clearly evident which computer was used to post or send the aforementioned message. Many staff members were able to use a computer to connect to the internet through a dial-up system by entering the defendant’s username and password. When the property of the defendant was examined, the message in the charge was not found which the officials were looking for.
The defendant was not in a position to know this in advance, therefore it was not in her power to delete the message entered in the Prachatai website.

There was also evidence from computer expert witnesses that an IP address cannot be used as a tool to identify the sender of an internet message with any certainty because false IP addresses can be easily created. If a person has expert computer knowledge and a programme that allows this, it is possible to falsify an IP address. It is therefore possible that another person falsified the IP address number in the message in this case on the Prachatai website, so that it was the same as the IP address number by which the defendant connected to the internet at the same time. The evidence of the prosecution witnesses makes it therefore suitably questionable as to whether the defendant committed an offence or not. The benefit of the doubt therefore must be given to the defendant in accordance with Section 227, Subsection 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Case dismissed.

30 March 2011

The public prosecutor submitted appeal

2 October 2013

Having review the case, the Court of Appeal decided to overrule the verdict of the Court of First Instance and sentenced Noppawan to 5 years in prison. Earlier, the Court of First Instance dismissed the charge on the ground that the prosecution cannot prove beyond the reasonable doubt that the defendant is the one who posted such message. The court also stated that IP Adress alone is not valid enough to determine that the defendant is guilty. The Court of Appeal however hold the different opinion.

The Court of Appeal hold that even there was no eyewitness in this case but testimonies of the expert witnesses confirmed that each computer has different IP address and each had only one IP address. IP address of the defendant's computer appeared to connect with the internet at the same time when the crime was committed. In order to connect with the internet, user need to put in telephone number and password therefore it is admissible to use as an evident of crime. Even a message was deleted but it was kept in the server of the internet service provider, therefore the defendant cannot denied the allegation. Moreover, witnesses for the prosecution were officers on duty who had no conflict of interest with the defendant, testimonies therefore convincing.

The defendant claimed that her IP address was forged. However, witnesses for the prosecution confirmed strongly that the forge of IP address is difficult. Moreover, in order to post message on webboard, user need to put in username and password without the correct password from the defendant it is impossible to connect with the internet. For these reason, the court found that the defendant is the person who posted such message by herself.

The constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand stated that the king shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. Act of the defendant therefore harmful to the status of the monarchy and deserve to be punish severely in order to prevent others from imitation. For these reason the Court of Appeal disagree with the verdict of the Court of the First Instance. The Court of Appeal found the defendant guilty under Article 112 of the criminal code and under

Article 14 of Computer-related Crime Act of 2550 BE. The defendant shall be sentenced to 5 years in prison and the printed document of the defendant's message shall be confiscated.

Around 17.20pm the Criminal Court granted the defendant on bail with the title deed value at 1 million Bath

Additional Information

This case was quoted as the tenth point in the prosecution of Miss Chiranuch Premchaiporn, the Manager of Prachatai under Section 15 of the Computer-Related Crime Act, where the verdict will be read on 30 April 2012

The message cited in this case as an offence under the law appeared on the webboard of Prachatai but the charge and the verdict referred to this as a website. After this case and after Chiranuch was charged, Prachatai decided to close its webboard service in July 2010.

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