The Supreme Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for a woman accused of posting lèse majesté content on the now-defunct Prachatai web forums in 2008 after she did not show up to hear the verdict. 

 

The Supreme Court on Friday morning was scheduled to read the verdict against Noppawan T., who was accused of using the username ‘Bento’ to post lèse majesté comments on the web forum. Since the defendant failed to present at the court, the court decided to postpone the reading and issued the arrest warrant. 

 

Noppawan’s father came to the courtroom, but said he did not know the whereabouts of his daughter and could not contact her. 

 

The court set to read the verdict on 20 October. 

 

Noppawan was accused of violating Article 112 of the Criminal Code, aka the lèse majesté  law, and Article 14 of the Computer Crime Act for importing illegal content onto the computer system. 

 

The Court of First Instance in January 2011 dropped the case, citing inconclusive evidence, thus giving her the benefit of the doubt. The Appeal Court in October 2013 overturned the decision of the Court of First Instance and sentenced Noppawan to five years in prison. 

 

After the arrest in January 2009, she was detained in prison for 10 days before being released on bail