Australian sentenced for insulting Thai monarchy

An Australian writer was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for insulting Thailand's royal family in his novel, a rare conviction of a foreigner amid a crackdown on people and Web sites deemed critical of the monarchy.

Bangkok's Criminal Court sentenced Harry Nicolaides to six years behind bars but reduced the term because he had entered a guilty plea, the judge said.

Nicolaides, a 41-year-old from Melbourne, was charged with insulting Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the crown prince in his 2005 book "Verisimilitude," a piece of fiction that only sold seven copies.

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This is why monarchies are a thing of the past. This is way beyond stupid and into the realm of shear lunatic idiocy. But judging by some of the fragile egos of some I have encountered it is not unsurprising that the egos 'bruised' by a passage in a book that only sold seven copies went off the deep end ...

Here is a scanned copy of Nicolaides' book.