From the BBC, a British journalist stands to face up to five years in jail in Thailand. The cause behind the sentence comes after a lawyer brought a criminal defamation case against him over an investigation into fraud on a popular tourist island.
Rights activists state that the case brings to light Thai's computer crime laws and defamation which evade investigative journalism and hence make it difficult to expose wrongdoing. It started back in 2015 when Jonathan Head, BBC's south-east Asia correspondent, reported on the scamming of two foreign retirees out of their properties in Phuket.
According to The Guardian, the prosecution was brought by a Phuket lawyer, Pratuan Thanarak, who was featured in Head's report. This Thursday, Head made an appearance in court in Phuket accompanied by Ian Rance, one of the retirees who is a British national. Rance is a joint defendant in the prosecution and both of them pleaded not guilty.
The two-year court battle will require them to give up their passports to the court. This will leave Head in the position of being unable to work across Asia during the duration of the case. In 2001, Rance retired to Phuket and wedded a local woman who bore him three children. She also purchased nearly £1m worth of properties.
According to Thai law, foreigners do not hold the right to own land. However, many manage to get around that by purchasing properties in the name of a trusted local or a company they own. In 2010, Rance came to know that his wife had forged his signature in an attempt to remove him as director of the properties.
She intended to sell the properties with the help and aid of a network of property agents and money lenders on the island. The scam resulted in her imprisonment for four years while Rance fought through courts for years in order to retrieve his the properties.
BBC's Head reported in regards to Pratuan stating his admissions to notarising Rance's signature in his absence. In response, Pratuan filed a defamation case in which he alleged that the report "defamed, insulted or hated" him and his reputation.
While the BBC intended to clear Head's name and stood by its journalism, Pratuan failed to honor requests for comment.
