After the 2006 coup d'état that toppled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, he joined the Red Shirt[1] movement and led its most intransigent and militant wing.

One of their daughters, Khattiyah Sawasdipol, succeeded her father as a Red Shirt activist and was elected to parliament on the Pheu Thai Party's list in 2011.

Besides publishing a series of books ("Khom...Seh Daeng") about his adventures that became bestsellers in Thailand,[3][4] he frequently appeared on television talk shows and had a cult following, achieving almost celebrity status.

The pro-Thaksin camp returned to power after their electoral victory in January 2008, and Khattiya vowed to protect it against a potential new coup attempt—if necessary with military force.

On 18 October 2008, during the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) (or "Yellow Shirt") protests against the government, he announced his intention to "mobilise government supporters against any military attempt to seize political power", threatening that members of the pro-government Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship (DAAD) would use Molotov cocktails against any military vehicles taking part in a coup attempt.

During the Red Shirt occupation of Ratchaprasong, he expressed himself ready to lead his men into combat against the Thai army, if it dared to try to break up the protests by force.

[11] At 19:20 on 13 May 2010, Khattiya was shot in the head, apparently by a sniper, at the intersection of the Sala Daeng BTS station, as he was being interviewed by Thomas Fuller of the New York Times.

The boy's status was later approved by Trang's Provincial Familial Court to be a legal son of the late General, part due to lack of appeal to such judgement.