Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej has pardoned a Swiss man jailed for 10 years for defacing pictures of the revered monarch on his birthday, prison chief Chuchart Chailert said on Thursday.
"His Majesty has granted him a pardon and we released him on Tuesday," said the head of the prison in the northern city of Chiang Mai where 57-year-old Oliver Rudolf Jufer was sent after being sentenced last month.
"He now feels guilty about what he has done and is grateful for the royal pardon," Chuchart told Reuters on the eve of the Thai New Year. The Swiss embassy in Bangkok said it was "assisting Thai authorities" in Jufer's deportation.
"He will be travelling back to Switzerland at the earliest opportunity," a spokesman said. The pardon for Jufer was not a surprise. King Bhumibol has said forcefully in public he is not above criticism and usually pardons people jailed for lese majeste.
Jufer, a long-time Thai resident, was arrested in Chiang Mai for spraying black paint on several portraits of King Bhumibol, 79, whom many Thais revere as semi-divine, and Queen Sirikit. He was initially jailed for 20 years, but the judge reduced the term because Jufer, facing up to 75 years in prison, had pleaded guilty.
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