Thaksin granted royal pardon to serve just one year in jail

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

DE FACTO PHEU THAI BOSS Thaksin Shinawatra has been given royal pardon which will practically curtail his eight-year jail term to only one year.

According to a statement of a royal gazette issued today (Sep.1), the sought-after royal pardon has been granted by His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn for the “sickly” Thaksin to the extent that his earlier-sentenced, eight-year jail term be practically reduced to one year behind bars under three separate cases of court-convicted misconducts perpetrated during his previous premiership until he was deposed in the 2006 coup which had sent him into self-exile since then.

The royal pardon, a petition for which had been filed by Thaksin’s family recently, was granted for the 74-year-old former prime minister who may help with the running of the country in the future, given his relevant knowledge and experience, according to the royal gazette statement.

Thaksin had been put under custody of the Corrections Department at Bangkok Remand Prison and Police Hospital for 10 days since he returned from 17 years in self-exile abroad on Aug.22 – the same date on which Pheu Thai candidate for prime minister Srettha Thavisin was successfully voted by lawmakers.

Nevertheless, the de facto Pheu Thai boss allegedly managed literally on his hospital bed to take part in power play by allocating varied portfolios of the Srettha cabinet among partners of a Pheu Thai-led coalition government.

On the first day of his return, Thaksin was brought to a nursing unit in the premises of the prison for barely a half day, then reported of “illnesses” in the middle of the night and was finally admitted at the security-tightened hospital.

De facto Ruam Thai Sang Chart boss/caretaker prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha who deposed an elected government of Thaksin’s sister/deposed prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in the 2014 coup was obliged to enforce the royal pardon in favour of the de facto Pheu Thai boss.

Srettha is largely known as personally associated with Yingluck who has also taken a post-coup, self-exile overseas, been court-sentenced to five years in jail for convicted misconduct over government rice price-pledging programmes and is now speculated to follow suit of her brother coming back home sooner or later.

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Top and Front Page: Pheu Thai de facto leader/former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra with his daughter and head of Pheu Thai Family Paetongtarn Shinawatra upon his arrival at Don Mueang Airport on August 22, 2023. Both photos: Sanook.com

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