Thaksin to be greeted with more cases, jail terms upon return on Tuesday
Former PM Thaksin Shinawatra will have to start serving 10 years in prison over three corruption cases from his time in office if he actually returns on Tuesday as scheduled.
Thaksin can no longer appeal these sentences, though he does have the right to seek a royal pardon for a reduced jail term.
The former premier, who has lived in self-imposed exile overseas since 2008, confirmed on Saturday that he will “definitely” fly back to Thailand on Tuesday (August 22).
He has been sued over eight criminal cases stemming from his tenure as prime minister between February 2001 and September 2006.
During his absence, the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions sentenced him to a total of 12 years behind bars in four cases. However, the statute of limitations for a two-year sentence handed down in October 2008 has since expired.
He was acquitted in two cases, while another two cases are still under investigation. The first court ruling against Thaksin came in October 2008, just two months after he left Thailand to supposedly attend the Beijing Summer Olympics. In this case, he was charged with abuse of power for letting his then-wife Khunying Potjaman purchase a coveted state-owned plot of land in Bangkok’s Ratchadaphisek area for a lot less than market value.
Thaksin was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison, but the 10-year statute of limitations for the court verdict expired in October 2018.
He was later sentenced to a total of 10 years behind bars for three separate cases.
The court gave him two years in prison for malfeasance over the two- and three-digit lottery case.
He was also handed down three years in prison for abuse of authority in a case involving 4-billion-baht loans granted to Myanmar by the Export-Import Bank of Thailand. The borrowed money had been spent buying supplies from a telecom firm owned by Thaksin’s family.
Thaksin was sentenced to another five years in prison, in which he was found guilty of using nominees to hold shares in his family business, Shin Corp.
The law prohibits any political office holder from holding shares in a telecom company.
Meanwhile, Thaksin was acquitted in two of the cases filed against him.
In 2019, the court dismissed charges of dereliction of duty and malfeasance filed against him in a case involving the Finance Ministry’s administration of a rehabilitation plan by the private firm Thai Petrochemical Industry (TPI).
In the same year, Thaksin was also acquitted in another case, in which he was accused of masterminding the 9-billion-baht loans state-owned Krungthai Bank granted to subsidiaries of property firm Krisda Mahanakorn.
The court found no convincing evidence to prove that Thaksin was the “big boss” who allegedly ordered bank executives to approve the loans.
The money was meant to refinance and acquire land for real-estate development, but was instead used in trading shares on the stock market and laundered to conceal its source, public prosecutors said.
In 2015, Krungthai’s former executive board chairman Suchai Jaovisidha and former bank president Viroj Nuankae were among over a dozen defendants sentenced to prison in connection with the loan scandal.
There are still two cases against Thaksin being investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
In one case, he is accused of masterminding fake government-to-government deals involving the rice-pledging scheme of his sister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government. In the second case, he is accused of malfeasance for Thai Airways’ purchase of 79 aircraft during his tenure, which was later blamed for the national carrier’s massive debts and financial trouble.
