2 years can be trimmed off Thaksin’s 10-year jail sentence, says senior public prosecutor

Thanakrit Vorathanatchakul, a senior public prosecutor attached to the Office of the Attorney-General and special law lecturer at several universities, said that though Thaksin was sentenced to three years, two years and five years in jail for the three cases, he should be behind bars for no more than eight years.

He explained that the first and second cases had overlapping terms, meaning the two jail terms will be served at the same time.

Only the third sentence of five years in jail is required to start after Thaksin has completed the first term of three years.

To be more specific, he said, Thaksin had been sentenced on April 23, 2019, to three years in jail in the Exim Bank’s loan case. In this, he was convicted for abusing his authority as PM to order the bank to grant a loan to the Myanmar government, so it could buy telecom gear from his family’s firm.

Then on June 5, 2019, the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Office sentenced Thaksin to jail for two years for unlawfully approving the sale of two- and three-digit lottery.

The public prosecutors did not ask the court to order that the jail term, in this case, start after the first case.

Then on July 30, 2020, the court sentenced Thaksin to jail for five years for abusing his authority to get a concession contract held by Shin Corp to be amended to allow it to pay for excise tax for mobile phone operation services instead of concession fees.

In this case, the court ordered that the jail term start after Thaksin has finished serving the terms for the first and second cases, Thanakrit said.

Since the court did not specify that the imprisonment for the lottery case starts after the Exim Bank case, the terms can be served at the same time in line with Article 22 of the Criminal Code, he said.