The long legal ordeal of two Phuket journalists facing a defamation suit by the Royal Thai Navy appears to have ended with the expiry on Friday night of the deadline for prosecutors to file an appeal against their acquittal.
The navy had pursued Australian journalist Alan Morison and his Thai colleague Chutima Sidasathian for their coverage of the trafficking of Rohingya Muslims, in a case that centred on a single paragraph from a Pulizer Prize winning story by the Reuters news agency.
But the 30-month legal battle has forced Morison, 68, to close his award-winning Phuketwan online news site and cost him much of his life savings, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
"We stood our ground because we knew we had done nothing wrong," said Morison, a former senior editor of the Melbourne Age, referring to advice to apologise to escape with a reduced sentence or to flee Thailand.
The acquittal of the two jouirnalists in September had been hailed as a triumph for the Thai justice system and a victory for media freedom. The prosecution did not even submit closing statements at the trial. However, prosecutors still asked the court several times to extend the period in which they could lodge an appeal. Those extensions ended on Friday.
The case could have far-reaching consequences for the use of defamation and the Computer Crime Act in Thailand.
"Thailand's defamation and Computer Crime Act laws must be repealed as they constitute a hideous threat to freedom of speech and democracy in Thailand," Mark Plunkett, a Brisbane barrister, who observed the trial for Australia's media union, told the Morning Herald.
Mr Morison and Ms Chutima, 34, had faced up to seven years' jail on the charges.
Despite the worldwide publication of the award-winning Reuters report on human trafficking, the navy laid charges only over the Phuketwan republication, prompting criticism that it had singled out a small independent news outlet.
Ms Chutima worked as a fixer for Reuters on its coverage of Rohingya, a minority in Myanmar's western Rakhine state who have been described by the United Nations as among the world's most persecuted people.
Phuketwan, which had been reporting on the treatment of Rohingya migrants in Thailand since 2009, as well as corruption and tourism safety on Phuket, closed on Dec 31.
"I wonder how many military officers spend their own savings trying to end human trafficking and corruption in Thailand," Mr Morison said. "A vibrant media must always question the actions and ethics of people in power."
He noted that the criminal defamation law and the Computer Crimes Act continued to be used against other journalists and human rights defenders, including British migrant workers' activist Andy Hall.
Mr Morison praised the Thai lawyers who acted for him and Chutima but said the charges should never have been laid.
"The case was pushed to court by one or two navy officers, acting on bad advice and relying on a deeply flawed translation of the Reuters paragraph from English into the Thai language," he said.
"The commanding officer should have telephoned Reuters to lodge a complaint about the paragraph. The matter would have been quickly settled ... instead, the navy waited six months – then ambushed Phuketwan."