The Khon Kaen court on Wednesday sentenced four red-shirt demonstrators to prison terms for torching the Khon Kaen provincial hall on May 19, 2010.
Adisai Wibulsek and Jirattrakul Sumaha were each sentenced to 13 years in prison, and Suthas Singbuakhao and Udom Khammul were given three years each.
They were members of the political red-shirt group the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) that supported former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Public prosecutors in Khon Kaen charged them with breaking into the Khon Kaen provincial hall, damaging property and setting fire to it on May 19, 2010. At that time, red-shirts were protesting against the Abhisit Vejjajiva government and demanding the dissolution of the House of Representatives and a general election.
The court, in sentencing the four men, said they were among hundreds of red-shirt demonstrators who first rallied at a public park adjacent to the Khon Kaen provincial hall on May 19, 2010.
The mob then broke into the compound and sent in a letter to a deputy Khon Kaen governor demanding the Abhisit government end the military crackdown on UDD supporters at Ratchaprasong intersection in downtown Bangkok.