15 March 2015
On the second day of the activity, when Pansak had marched to Methavalai Sorndaeng restaurant, people brought flowers for Pansak and asked Preecha to bring flowers for him too. Preecha thus provided Pansak a red rose and foods, and he also followed him until Pridi Plaza in Thammasat University, Tha Prachan Campus. At that time, a police officer from Chanasongkram Police Station, talked to him and forced him to provide his telephone number.
24 October 2015
Around 17.30 p.m. at Hiran-Nakorn port, Amphoe Chiang Saen, Chiang Rai Province, while Preecha was travelling to Laos, he was arrested by immigration officers as the arrest warrant showed on the immigration data when his passport was being checked.
25 October 2015
Preecha was brought from Chiang Rai to be inquired at the Chana Songkram Police Station, and was detained for one night. In the seizure and investigation, Preecha denied all the accusations against him.
26 October 2015
The inquiry officers took Preecha to Bangkok Military Court. In the provisional detention request, it was written that the investigators had detained the accused for 48 hours, but the examination was not yet completed because they needed to inquire seven witnesses and wait for the accused’s background check. Therefore, they asked to detain the accused for 12 more days from 26 October 2015 until 6 November 2015.
When Preecha was in the Military Court’s jail, lawyers from Free Thai Legal Aid came to bail him out. The group posted in their Facebook that on 10.00am, Free Thai Legal Aid’s lawyers has submitted a petition to Bangkok Military Court to momentarily release Preecha and the court allowed the bail at 2.00pm with a surety bond of 150,000 baht. But Preecha’s relatives placed Government Savings Bank Lottery worth 500,000 baht as security.
11 December 2015
Prosecution day
A military prosecutor filed a complaint against Preecha to the Military Court. Preecha was granted to bail out by using his old security on the same day, but he still was sent to prison to bereleased there. That was the second time of his imprisonment. The prosecutor’s indictment appeared that Preecha was only prosecuted under the charge of violating the NCPO’ s Announcement No. 7/2014, a ban on political gatherings of five or more persons. However, he was not charged with the Section 116 of the Criminal Code.
The complaint states that Preecha, the defendant, was a civilian who had violated the NCPO’ s Announcement No.7/2014, a ban on political gatherings of five or more persons, which is an offense under military court's jurisdiction. On 15 March 2015, during the declaration of martial law throughout the country, the defendant participated in a political activity with Pansak Srithep, who was prosecuted in the case no.174ก./2015, along with 5 other people who was not arrested yet, to oppose NCPO. Moreover, there were around 20 people participating in the activity with the defendant ; this action was a violation of NCPO’s Announcement No.7/2014, a ban on political gatherings of five or more persons though the defendant had already been awared of such announcement.
23 May 2016
Deposition Examination
The Military Court scheduled Preecha to give his plead at 8.30 a.m. However, the proceedings began at around 11.00 a.m. as the defendant’s attorney must prepare documents for a motion to support his confession.
The proceedings of Preecha’ s case started at around 11.00 a.m. in the courtroom no.1. The court read an accusation and asked Preecha that whether he had a lawyer and understand the accusation. Preecha answered that he had his lawyer already and did not want the court to appoint a lawyer for him. The court asked Preecha how he would give testimony and Preecha said that he would confess.
The court told the defendant that the military prosecutor would like to revise the accusation by adding that investigators had already inquired this section. The defendant did not object, so the court ordered him to sign as an evidence. The court continued to ask that whether he insisted on the motion of confession ; Preecha said yes. The court asked the plaintiff that whether he would object the defendant’s motion, and the judge advocate said that if the defendant remove the texts indicating that he committed the offence due to the fatuity and negligence, the prosecutor would not object. The defendant consented to remove such text, therefore, the prosecutor dod not object and did not want to have any witness examination.
As court thus read the proceedure record and a judgment that the defendant was guilty, punished by three months for imprisonment and by a fine 4,000 Baht. The imprisonment was suspended for a year since the day of the judgment.
After the verdict was annouced, Winyat Chartmontri, lawyer from Free Thai Legal Aid – FTLA, gave an interview that in this case, the military prosecutor only prosecuted Preecha under charge with violating NCPO’ s Announcement No. 7/2014 ; thus, the lawyer had consulted with Preecha, and Preecha was willing to confess because this case was a minor offence, and to fight the case would increase more burdens for him. At the same time, Preecha also gave an interview briefly that he would like to thank the court for giving him mercy as now he was very old with chronic health conditions, and just recently he had a heart bypass surgery for his two coronary arteries.