Politics

Thai prosecutors call to extend ex-PM’s sentence over defamation claims

Bangkok, Feb 6 (EFE).- Thailand’s Attorney General’s Office requested Tuesday that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra be detained after reporting that the prosecution is investigating a complaint against the former leader for royal defamation.

Prosecution Spokesman Prayut Petchkhun told the media that the request seeks for Thaksin, serving a year in prison for various corruption charges during his term, to continue in detention if he requests and achieves conditional release, which he could request from Feb. 18.

In a press conference, Prayut said the complaint against Thaksin, who lived in self-exile from 2008 until August to avoid prosecution, was filed in 2016 following the former president’s statements during an interview with a South Korean news agency.

Those statements suggested that the Privy Council of the Royal Household was behind the May 2014 coup against the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s younger sister.

In a previous statement issued Tuesday morning, the office said they are currently compiling all information about the case before the attorney general decides, within an undetermined period, whether to formally charge Thaksin or dismiss the complaint.

The former leader, who has not spent a night in prison since his return, is admitted to the Police Hospital in Bangkok under the custody of the Department of Prisons.

In mid-January, Prisons authorized extending the out-of-prison hospitalization of Thaksin who, according to doctors, suffers from medical pathologies that endanger his life.

Thaksin, 74, was deposed in a military coup in 2006 but returned to Thailand on Aug. 22 after 15 years in exile, the same day his ally Srettha Thavisin was elected prime minister with the support of two pro-military parties.

The former president spent a few hours in prison before being transferred to a hospital and, the following week, a royal pardon reduced his accumulated sentences from eight years to one year in prison.

The latest developments have been seen as a reconciliation between Thaksin’s circle and Thailand’s pro-military, pro-monarchist elite, which has for years considered him the country’s No. 1 public enemy. EFE

nc/lds

Related Articles

Back to top button