A British BBC journalist appeared in a Thai court on Wednesday for the start of a criminal defamation trial brought by a lawyer who featured in an investigation about foreigners being scammed of their retirement homes. Jonathan Head, the BBC‘s Southeast Asia correspondent, faces up to five years in jail at the private prosecution on the popular tourist island of Phuket. Rights groups have said the case exposes how Thailand’s broad defamation and computer crime laws scupper investigative journalism and make it difficult to uncover wrongdoing in an endemically corrupt country. The prosecution…
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