Bangkok - A Bangkok court jailed an oil engineer for 10 years Friday for posting a picture deemed insulting to the Thai monarch on a website, the first verdict using new computer crime laws enacted in 2007.

Suwicha Thakho was initially sentenced to 20 years but the court lowered the term because of his guilty plea. Suwicha, a married man with children, wept after the sentencing, the Nation newspaper reported.

The computer crime law targets the use of computer systems to threaten "national security," which most observers take to be an attempt to reign in any discussion of the role of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and other members of the royal family.

The government has launched a campaign to prevent lese majeste on the internet, closing down 4,000 websites in recent months.

A prominent social critic has fled to England after being charged with lese majeste. At least one foreign journalist also faces lese majeste charges and possible imprisonment.

The number of lese majeste accusations has increased significantly since the 2006 bloodless military coup that unseated populist then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. About a dozen more cases are under way.

Critics of the laws, including the pro-Thaksin Red Shirt anti-government protestors currently camped out in front of the seat of government, claim they are used for political purposes, rather than to protect the monarch.

Last year, a government backed by Thaksin, who lives in self-imposed exile, was undermined by protestors claiming to be acting to protect the king.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose administration took over from that government, has promised to review the use of lese majeste laws, but so far, authorities seem as keen as ever to clamp down on any hard discussion of the role of the monarchy in politics and society.

Although Abhisit has backed the legislation as a stabilizing force, he said his government would "uphold the law, but we must not allow people to interpret the law too liberally and abuse the law."

In a speech delivered two years ago, the king obliquely criticized the lese majeste law himself, noting that he should not be above criticism. (dpa)