Ampon Tangnoppakul

Ampon filed an appeal against the judgment of the Criminal Court, and was detained pending appeal. He applied for a provisional release, but the Court of Appeal refused his application. He then lodged a final appeal with the Supreme Court of Justice against the Court of Appeal's order of refusal, but his final appeal was also turned down. Seeing no hope, he also gave up the appeal against the Criminal Court's judgment and sought a royal pardon instead, causing the judgment to be final in process. The Criminal Court issued a warrant of finality on 3 April 2012, at which time Ampon was subjected to imprisonment as sentenced. In the month preceding Ampon's death, he wrote from prison that he missed his wife and grandchildren but had "high hopes that I will get freedom soon".

In the morning of 8 May 2012, Ampon was found dead in the Khlong Prem Prison. The cause of death was initially unknown. Police Colonel Suchat Wong-a-nanchai, Director General of the Corrections Department, revealed that a penal officer informed him that Ampon had complained about a pain in his stomach on 3 May, and the officer delivered Ampon to the Penal Hospital the following day.

On 18 January 2011, a public prosecutor filed a charge against Ampon before the Criminal Court. The charge stated that Ampon, using his mobile phone, sent four different short messages to Somkiat at different times:

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Thai academic in Singapore, in 2011, launched a nationwide campaign to free Ampon and to inform the public of the impact caused by Article 112. His campaign is "Fearlessness," by writing the name of "Akong" on his palm. Soon after, many Thais joined his campaign.

The Criminal Court held four hearings on 23, 27, 28 and 30 September 2011. The first three hearings covered the prosecution evidence, and the fourth, the defence evidence.

The judgment was pronounced on 23 November, through a videoconferencing system from the Criminal Court to the Khlong Prem Prison where Ampon was detained, as the 2011 flood prevented his personal appearance. The court took eighteen minutes to pronounce the judgment. Since the pronouncing could not be heard clearly, the penal officers sitting by the side of Ampon subsequently asked a court officer through the monitor what the court had said. The court officer merely answered: "Uncle, you'll be inside for twenty years."

In ThaiPBS’s show Reaching an Answer on the topic "Uncle SMS and Section 112", aired on 12 December 2011, Phanat Thatsaniyanon, former dean of the Faculty of Law, Thammasat University and former Attorney General, said he was uncertain if justice could be done in the trial of "section 112" cases, especially when the proceedings are always carried out in curia. In the same show, commentator Nidhi Eoseewong stated that he was deeply moved by a long sentence imposed on an aged and ailing man, and remarked that "Justice does not float in the sky, but it does lie in the heart of the society in each period of time ... Many social movements in the 'Uncle SMS' case point out the change of Thai society's attitude on justice. A standard of justice which was once held by us has now been changed. In Ayutthaya period, Uncle SMS would be punished by having his mouth stuffed with ripe coconuts."

In mid-2010, Somkiat Khrongwattanasuk made a denunciation before the National Police Headquarters’ Technology-Related Offence Suppression Division (TROSD) that four short messages were sent to his mobile phone by an unknown person and their contents were likely to constitute an offence. The TROSD then set up an investigation team.

From the investigation, the team learned that Ampon owned the number from which the messages were sent, and successfully applied to the Criminal Court for a warrant of arrest on 29 July. Ampon was arrested at his rented house in Samut Prakan, and police seized three of his mobile phones together with their supplementary equipment. The Criminal Court placed Ampon in detention at the Khlong Prem Prison and turned down his relatives' request for provisional release. However, Ampon's relatives lodged a successful appeal with the Court of Appeal. Ampon was detained for sixty-three days prior to the release granted by the Court of Appeal on 4 October 2010.

Ampon married Rosmalin Tangnoppakul (รสมาลิน ตั้งนพกุล; RTGS: Rotmalin Tangnopphakun). The two have two daughters, Porawan Chotphichit and Piyamat Tangnoppakul, and a certain number of sons. Ampon once earned his livelihood as a goods container driver. As his age and illness grew, especially following his mouth cancer surgery in 2007, he quit such work and cohabited with his wife in a rented house in Amphoe Mueang Samut Prakan, Changwat Samut Prakan, supporting himself by the money provided by his children and maintaining his grandchildren in return.

The international human rights community was critical of the Thai government following Ampon's death, with an Amnesty International spokesman stated that Ampon "had come to represent the enormous degree of injustice that was this lèse majesté law". The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) released a statement offering condolences on Ampon's death and criticizing the conditions of Thai detention centers as falling "far short of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners". The FIDH also called for an independent investigation into the circumstances of Ampon's death, a call echoed by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). The AHRC also called for the abolition of lèse majesté as a criminal offence, stating: "In the years since the coup on September 19, 2006, many people have paid a high price for alleged disloyalty to the monarchy, with sentences whose length is comparable to those for persons convicted of drug trafficking and murder. The death in custody of Amphon Tangnoppakul indicates that the price of loyalty is too high: a man has paid for four SMS messages with his life, and his family has paid with the loss of their husband, father and grandfather."

Ampon Tangnoppakul (Thai: อำพล ตั้งนพกุล; RTGS: Amphon Tangnopphakun; 1 January 1948 – 8 May 2012), commonly known in Thai as Ah Kong (อากง; meaning 'grandpa') or in English as Uncle SMS, was a Thai national accused of sending four Short Message Service (SMS) messages from his cell phones to Somkiat Khrongwatthanasuk, secretary of then Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva that were deemed offensive to the King and Queen of Thailand, as proscribed by section 112 of the Criminal Code of Thailand and the law on computer-related offences. Having been found guilty of four charges in November 2011, he was sentenced by the Criminal Court to four consecutive five-year terms, for a total of twenty years in prison. His death in prison during the first year of his sentence attracted national and international criticism, prompting a national discussion of Thailand's lèse majesté law.