Thai king’s aide jailed for royal defamation

BANGKOK, Thailand – A senior aide to Thailand’s new King Maha Vajiralongkorn has been jailed for five and a half years for royal defamation and other offenses, police said.

The military court’s verdict on Friday, March 3, comes less than two weeks after the palace sacked the king’s deputy chief of staff Chitpong Thongkum for behaving “in a way that brought about distrust and caused severe damage to the royal family.”

Palace affairs are often difficult to penetrate in Thailand, where harsh defamation laws shield the royal family from scrutiny and make any discussion of the monarchy extremely sensitive.

Media must heavily self-censor when reporting on the royal family.

In addition to violating the royal insult law, Chitpong was also convicted of “committing theft in state offices” and breaching medical and cosmetic laws, according to a police statement.

“The total prison term is 4 years and 18 months,” the statement said, without elaborating on how the statutes were violated.

A military court spokesman declined to comment on the case.

The initial palace statement firing Chitpong accused him of making “false claims” about Vajiralongkorn for personal gain, “releasing the king’s personal medical records and stealing his assets.”

It said Chitpong was in charge of security for the monarch, who took the throne last year following the death of his revered father in October 2016.

The royal succession was Thailand’s first in 70 years and was seen as a sensitive time for the kingdom. Vajiralongkorn has yet to attain the massive popularity enjoyed by his father.

‘Fall from grace’

Chitpong, a former Air Vice Marshal, is the latest in a string of people close to the new monarch to publicly fall from grace. 

On Thursday, March 2, security officers escorted another senior palace aide, former Grand Chamberlain Jumpol Manmai, to a Bangkok police station to hear charges of land encroachment for building a mansion on park land. 

Speculation about Jumpol’s fate had swirled for weeks with authorities refusing to disclose his whereabouts after word leaked he was under investigation. 

Jumpol, who served as deputy national police chief before rising up the palace ranks, was also sacked in Februrary 2017, in a royal statement that said he had abused his position for personal gains.

In 2015, 3 people were arrested under the lese majeste law for similar allegations. 

Two suspects died in military custody soon after their arrests.

Prior to that, 6 relatives of Vajiralongkorn’s ex-wife were arrested and later jailed on lese majeste charges for allegedly abusing their connections to the then-crown prince. – Rappler.com