Thai yellow-shirt founder Sondhi cleared of insulting monarchy
Court rules Sondhi had 'no intention' of insulting Thai monarchy by repeating rival's remarks
A Bangkok court has acquitted the founder of Thailand's monarchist "yellow shirt" protest movement of royal insult charges for repeating excerpts from a speech by a political rival.
Sondhi Limthongkul, one of Thailand's most controversial political figures, had "no intention" of breaching strict lèse-majesté laws in his 2008 comments, according to one of the judges in the capital's Criminal Court.
"The court has found that the defendant quoted parts of another person's speech with the intention to call for police to take legal action against that person," she said at the hearing yesterday, attended by around 50 supporters of the nationalist People's Alliance for Democracy.
"The defendant's action was not intended to insult the monarchy."
Media mogul Sondhi said the charges against him originated from unspecified political rivals. "There is an effort to put me in jail," he said, alleging that some elements in the court system had colluded with politicians.
Protests by the yellow shirts helped trigger a coup by royalist generals in 2006 that ousted then-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Sondhi's long-time rival.