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BANGKOK: A Thai court convicted two prominent members of the royalist "Yellow Shirt" protest movement Thursday of defaming fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra by accusing him of insulting the monarchy.
Media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul and Soracha Pornudomsak, who together hosted a show on Sondhi's pro-Yellow television channel, were each handed fines and a six-month jail sentence suspended for two years by a Bangkok criminal court.
The case stemmed from taped comments made by Sondhi in 2007 to Yellow Shirts in the United States about his arch-enemy Thaksin, the hero of the rival anti-government "Red Shirts".
The footage was later aired on Sondhi and Soracha's Thai show.
"The actions by both defendants were slanderous, so the court sentenced them each to six months jail and a 20,000 baht (640 dollar) fine," the judge said, adding that the pair would be on probation for two years.
Thaksin, who lives abroad to escape a jail term for corruption but remains an influential and divisive figure back home, sued the pair via lawyers in Thailand.
Insulting the monarchy is a serious charge in Thailand, where the king is treated with almost religious adulation.
Under its strict lese majeste rules anyone can file a complaint, and police are duty-bound to investigate it.
In a tangle of Thai litigation, Sondhi -- who founded the Yellow movement -- has himself been indicted on lese majeste accusations, for quoting from the speech of a hardcore member of the rival Red Shirts in 2008.
A criminal court has accepted to hear the case, which is postponed until November 1.
The protester whose remarks he repeated was sentenced in August 2009 to 18 years in prison for insulting the royal family at rallies seeking the return of Thaksin.
Sondhi is also among a group of protesters charged with terrorism last month over the crippling 2008 seizure of two Bangkok airports, which helped to topple a Thaksin-allied government.
Thailand is largely split between the pro-establishment Yellows, backed by Bangkok-based elites who detest Thaksin, and the mainly poor and working-class Reds, who supported Thaksin's populist policies when in power.
Two months of protests by the Red Shirts in Bangkok earlier this year sparked outbreaks of violence that left 91 people dead and nearly 1,900 injured, ending with a bloody army crackdown on May 19.
-AFP/wk
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