Police from the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) took Noppawan Bunluesilp into custody after raiding her house yesterday morning.

Noppawan, the wife of former reporter Andrew MacGregor Marshall, was released by police after questioning.

Marshall, an outspoken critic of the Thai monarchy, argued that his wife had no involvement with his journalism and she had not taken part in the posting of the photos.

Noppawan is on a visit to Thailand with Charlie, her three-year-old son with Marshall, who was in Hong Kong yesterday.

Acting on a search warrant issued by Thon Buri Criminal Court, some 20 CSD officers confiscated a laptop computer, an iPad, flash drives, passports and other documents found in Noppawan’s Thon Buri residence. They took her, her son, and her father to the CSD headquarters.

A lawyer from the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group was not allowed to accompany Noppawan as the police explained she was not yet charged. After five hours of questioning, Noppawan was released without being charged.

The police action yesterday came a day after Marshall, via his Facebook account, shared photos, parts of translated content, and the link to an article in a German tabloid newspaper about a royal figure.

Pol Lt-General Thitirat Nongharnpitak, commander of the Central Investigation Bureau, said the photos were doctored and imported to an online platform by Marshall and two Thai accomplices.

He said police were convinced Noppawan was not involved with her husband’s action.

He said police also found that Marshall and Noppawan had travelled to neighbouring countries to join anti-royal groups there. He added that police are watching closely more than 30 people involved with such a movement.

The spokesman for the military’s ruling National Council for Peace and Order, Colonel Piyapong Klinpan, said the junta was monitoring the matter.

Marshall, meanwhile, argued that his wife Noppawan was never involved in his activities.

“If Thai police believe that I have broken Thai law, they should seek my extradition to Thailand via legitimate international legal channels,” he said in a Facebook message yesterday. “It is unacceptable to harass an innocent woman simply because she is married to me.”

He told Agence France-Presse: “We’d always been concerned that it might be dangerous for my wife to visit Thailand especially since the military coup but she hadn’t seen her family for a couple of years.”

Marshall also stressed that he had nothing to do with the photographs in question as they were taken in Germany and published by a newspaper there.

Noppawan told police yesterday that she had urged her husband to stop criticising the monarchy but that he did not listen to her. The last time she met him was three months ago in Scotland, she said.

Marshall, a former Reuters reporter, is the author of a banned book on the Thai monarchy. Noppawan was also previously associated with Reuters but gave up journalism.

In a separate development, Military Court prosecutors yesterday indicted Patnaree Charnkit, the mother of Resistant Citizen group leader Sirawit Sereethiwat, on charges of lese majeste and violating the Computer Crime Act.

However, they postponed her handover to the Bangkok Military Court until August 1, as she did not show up at the court yesterday.

Her lawyers told the prosecutors that Patnaree, aka Nuengnuj, had just learned about the prosecutors’ decision to indict her late in the afternoon. They did not expect such a decision because the police investigators had earlier resolved not to pursue the case against the woman.