The Supreme Court has handed an eight-month jail term, suspended for two years, to a protest leader involved in obstructing the general election in 2014.
The Criminal Court on Tuesday read the ruling in the case filed against Sonthiyan Chuenruethainaitham, 62, a former core member of the now-defunct People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), and three others.
They were Sakoltee Phattiyakul, 47, a former Democrat Party MP for Bangkok; Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, 73, a former rector of the National Institute of Development Administration (Nida); and Seri Wongmontha, 75, a well-known mass media and marketing expert.
The lower court originally acquitted the four defendants. In 2021, the Court of Appeal upheld the rulings but found Sonthiyan guilty of violating the Elections Act by conspiring with others to disrupt advance voting in a general election at Sukhothai School in Dusit district of Bangkok in early 2014.
The Court of Appeal sentenced him to one year in jail, reduced to eight months because he gave useful testimony. The court also ordered his voting rights suspended for five years.
The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Sonthiyan’s eight-month jail term was appropriate. However, it did not agree that he should serve a prison term, so it suspended his sentence for two years and fined him 20,000 baht.
The four defendants had been charged with insurrection, criminal association, illegal assembly, instigation of strikes and obstructing an election.
The charges were filed against them in 2014 in connection with the PDRC protests against former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra between November 2013 and May 2014.
The snap election called for Feb 2, 2014 in an attempt to restore political order was seriously disrupted in Bangkok and many other parts of the country. The Constitutional Court annulled the results the following month. Political chaos continued, culminating in the coup carried out by Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha on May 22, 2014.