Section 107: Killing the King
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดปลงพระชนม์พระมหากษัตริย์ ต้องระวางโทษประหารชีวิต ผู้ใดพยายามกระทำการเช่นว่านั้น ต้องระวางโทษเช่นเดียวกัน ผู้ใดกระทำการใดอันเป็นการตระเตรียมเพื่อปลงพระชนม์พระมหากษัตริย์ หรือรู้ว่ามีผู้จะปลงพระชนม์พระมหากษัตริย์ กระทำการใดอันเป็นการช่วยปกปิดไว้ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตลอดชีวิต
English translation
Whoever kills the King shall be liable to the death penalty.
Whoever attempts to commit such an act shall be liable to the same punishment.
Whoever does any act in preparation for killing the King, or who, knowing that a person is going to kill the King, does any act to help conceal it, shall be liable to imprisonment for life.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
This is the first of the offences against the King. It punishes three distinct things at the same level of gravity: the completed killing, the attempt, and preparation together with concealment. Preparation is not normally punishable in Thai criminal law, so extending liability to preparatory acts, and to a person who merely helps conceal someone they know intends to kill, is a deliberate departure from the general part. The penalty for the completed act and the attempt is death; for preparation and concealment it is imprisonment for life.
Why this matters in practice
This is the gravest offence in the Code and the only punishment for the completed act is death. Two features matter as much as the killing itself. Section 107 provides within its own text that an attempt carries the same punishment, so the two-thirds reduction for attempts in Section 80 is unavailable. And the section reaches two further classes at life imprisonment: a person who does any act in preparation, and a person who, knowing that another is going to commit the offence, does any act to help conceal it. Section 111 makes a supporter liable to the same punishment as a principal, so the two-thirds reduction for supporters in Section 86 does not apply either. This is an offence against the person of the King and is distinct from the speech offence in Section 112. Anyone connected with an allegation of this kind needs specialist criminal defence immediately.
Cited in 2 Supreme Court decisions (2024 to 2024)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 4302/2567 (2024)
- Decision 5547/2567 (2024)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 107 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 107. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-107/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 107 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-107/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-107/"><p>Whoever kills the King shall be liable to the death penalty. Whoever attempts to commit such an act shall be liable to the same punishment. Whoever does any act in preparation for killing the King, or who, knowing that a person is going to kill…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 107 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-107/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.