THE prime minister yesterday warned that “many people will be put in jail”, as the authorities investigate the source of funding for the publication of a booklet on the draft constitution described by the drafters as containing false and distorted information.

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who also heads the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), said authorities were investigating the matter to determine who had produced the booklet and the source of the funding.

He added that it was against the law to falsify a state document.

“We will find them finally. If they are put into jail, there could be a protest again,” he told reporters.

The PM said he believed “some people” had funded the publication of the document, adding that “things are getting clearer and clearer now”.

When asked if he was confident the masterminds would be arrested, Prayut said: “I am confident in the officials responsible. They will make any arrests, not me.”

Responding to a reporter who asked whether he thought the Election Commission (EC) would be able to deal with people attempting to disrupt the August 7 referendum on the draft constitution, he said he was hopeful and would offer moral support to the authorities involved.

“Many people will end up in jail. Don’t worry about that. Investigations are under way on several cases. And don’t accuse me of persecution,” he said.

On Thursday, the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) asked the EC to take action over the distribution of copies of a document containing what it said was false information about the draft charter – an action which was against the Referendum Act.

The “fake” booklet looks like the one produced by the CDC that summarises the draft constitution with specific points, but it also includes information that does not exist in the draft charter and contains “false” content, according to the CDC spokesmen.

On Thursday, a group of student activists, called the New Democracy Movement (NDM), admitted that they had produced the document in order to criticise certain points in the draft constitution.

Pakorn Areekul, a leader of the group, said the cost of publication had been covered by donations, denying a suggestion that it was funded by an unnamed political group.

The NCPO is investigating to determine who gave financial support to the NDM in producing copies of the document that contained “distorted information”, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday.

“We will find out whether the students could afford to print copies of the document, and if anyone had supported them. Also, we will see where the copies were printed, how many were printed, and how much it cost,” the NCPO source said. He added that the CDC and the EC were separately attempting to find out in which provinces copies of the document had been distributed, and who was behind the distribution.

CDC chairman Meechai Ruchupan said on Thursday that he was convinced the document had been published in large numbers, and that its publication must have been funded by a group of people.

Yesterday, Meechai said a CDC subcommittee was looking into the document produced by the NDM student group to determine whether any of its content was against the law.

However, he admitted that although initially he had found part of the document’s content to “lack good reason”, it was not a distortion or false.

The subcommittee has yet to conclude its findings, CDC spokesman Chatchai Na Chiangmai said yesterday.

In a related development, the German Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has criticised the content of the draft constitution, the EurActiv Germany website reported. “With concern, we note that the draft constitution does not strengthen a separation of powers, but the power of the military is maintained in the future,” said the committee’s coordinators – Norbert Rottgen, Stefan Liebich and Marieluise Beck.