Medical Council asked to probe Thaksin’s doctors

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

THE MEDICAL COUNCIL was today (Dec.25) petitioned to investigate allegations that certain doctors had violated a professional code of ethics to keep de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict Thaksin Shinawatra from jail.

Former Democrat MP Watchara Petthong filed the petition against doctors of Bangkok Remand Prison and Police Hospital with Itthaporn Khanacharoen, secretary-general of the Medical Council, alleging that those doctors had broken their professional ethics to keep Thaksin from being literally put behind bars at the prison by transferring him over to the hospital where he has been staying beyond a 120-day period earlier provided by law.

The de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict at large had allegedly feigned “illnesses” in the alleged connivance with the unidentified doctors at the prison and hospital, according to the former lawmaker.

Watchara called on the Medical Council to look into the suspected acts of those doctors who, he said, may have been tempted by the de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict at large into providing him such unethical help.

The ex-MP said many people have been puzzled by the event in which Thaksin has never spent a single day behind bars at Bangkok Remand Prison since he returned from self-exile abroad four months earlier and instead been given privileges unprovided for other convicts in a tight-security, private ward at Police Hospital.

In particular, he alleged, one of the accused doctors may have “doctored” Bangkok Remand Prison’s official report to falsify the “illnesses” of the deposed prime minister.

Thaksin who had globetrotted and resided overseas for 17 years until he returned in August was convicted by court of a few counts of misconduct during his previous premiership and originally subject to an eight-year jail sentence which was curtailed by royal pardon to only one year.

Nevertheless, he is largely speculated to be transferred sooner than later from Police Hospital to some living quarters in “house arrest” fashion before he is released on parole by the upcoming February.

CAPTION:

Former Democrat MP Watchara Petthong, left in above photo and right in Front Page photo, handing over his petition to Medical Council Secretary-General Itthaporn Khanacharoen with an image of de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra inset above. Top photo: Amarin TV, Front Page photo: Naewna

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