A security guard at a department store in Bangkok accused Mr. Opas of scrawling defamatory text on the walls of a public bathroom there last year. Mr. Opas, a shopkeeper in his late 60s, was arrested by the military and tried in a military court. His three-year jail sentence was later halved because of an illness.
It is unknown what exactly Mr. Opas was accused of writing on the bathroom wall, because lèse-majesté laws prevent the news media from reporting the alleged insult.