‘Sickly’ Thaksin has petitioned for royal pardon

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

A PETITION FOR ROYAL pardon over an eight-year jail term earlier sentenced for “sickly” de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra has already been filed barely a week after his return from self-exile abroad.

Caretaker deputy prime minister Wissanu Krea-ngam confirmed today (Aug.31) the deposed prime minister has recently had his family file the petition through the Ministry of Justice for His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn to grant him royal pardon after he had been sentenced by court to eight years in prison due to a few separate lawsuits over misconduct of which he had been convicted during his premiership nearly two decades earlier.

Nevertheless, an inmate is legally bound to have served a minimum of one-third of his or her convicted jail term before being officially considered whether to deserve royal pardon for which a time-consuming process will be taken.

The globetrotting Thaksin who was deposed in the 2006 coup and had taken self-exile abroad for 17 years since had been sentenced in absentia to three years for a combined couple of lawsuits, plus five years for another one, thus being legally obliged to have stayed behind bars for at least a year prior to any consideration of royal pardon for him, according to the outgoing deputy prime minister.

Thaksin who had had pictures of himself posted on social media supposedly to show he was strong and healthy over the past several years was brought by authorities from Don Mueang airport to the Supreme Court where he formally heard of his court verdict and then to a nursing unit in the premises of Bangkok Remand Prison where he stayed for barely a half day after he had arrived from Singapore on Aug.22 – the same date on which Pheu Thai candidate for prime minister Srettha Thavisin was successfully voted by lawmakers.

In the middle of the night, the “sickly” Thaksin was reported at Bangkok Remand Prison to have “illnesses” and quickly transferred to Police Hospital where doctors were purportedly more capable of handling them than those at prison.

The de facto Pheu Thai boss who had allegedly feigned his way to Police Hospital where he has been admitted to date could probably have played his decisive part in allocating portfolios of a Pheu Thai-led cabinet among coalition partners with the use of a cellphone constantly available on his hospital bed. No cellphones are legally allowed for use by inmates in prison.

CAPTIONS:

Top: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra, left, and caretaker deputy prime minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, right.

Front Page: Thaksin Shinawatra upon his arrival at Don Mueang Airport on Aug. 22, 2023. Both photos: Thai Rath

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