By Thai Newsroom Reporters
PRIME MINISTER SRETTHA Thavisin today (June 4) downplayed hearsay that de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra would again manipulate to escape from a lese majeste lawsuit to be filed against him in court later this month.
The Pheu Thai-attached prime minister said Thaksin who had earlier spent 17 years in self-exile abroad would already have had enough and would not escape from the criminal lawsuit as some of his critics may have anticipated, given the fact that he managed to get himself on the loose over a legal battle besieging him a decade and a half earlier.
Speaking to reporters at Government House, the prime minister said he did not believed Thaksin would escape and quoted Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of the billionaire, politically powerful de facto party boss, as saying her father is fine and not concerned over the lawsuit filed against him by the Office of the Attorney-General with himself being scheduled to be brought before the Criminal Court and hear of the formal charges based on the lese majeste law, also known as Section 112 of the Criminal Code, on June 18.
Nevertheless, Srettha declined to comment on Thaksin’s case, saying he had earlier made remarks about it and that he would not repeat them again.
It remains to be seen whether Thaksin will be released on bail that day, given previous events in which he had literally evaded court verdicts, thus read out in absentia, due to his having perpetrated power abuse during his previous premiership for which he had been sentenced to jail.
Upon his return from self-exile overseas last August, the original eight-year jail term for the de facto Pheu Thai boss had been curtailed by royal pardon to one year, the first half of which had been literally spent in highly privileged environment at Police Hospital in lieu of Bangkok Remand prison until he was granted parole earlier this year.
Most of Thaksin’s critics have invariably doubted that the billionaire power player would ever afford to be literally put behind bars for a single day if the court denied him bail on June 18.
Thaksin had been charged by the OAG for having made a verbal offence to the monarchy in alleged association with the 2006 coup staged by the then-army chief Sonthi Boonyaratkalin to oust him from power during an interview with a news agency in Seoul three years later.
Without elaborating, Paetongtarn has earlier said her father would likely take the opportunity to “speak the truth” about it in court.
Meanwhile, Srettha is currently faced with an impeachment lawsuit lodged by 40 senators who have charged that he had perpetrated a severe breach to the junta-designed constitution and code of political ethic by naming Pichit Chuenban, a former lawyer working on behalf of the de facto Pheu Thai boss, a minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office in last April’s cabinet lineup.
Though Pichit had already resigned under pressure, the contentious action on the part of the Pheu Thai-attached prime minister could probably be deemed as a fait accompli for which he could possibly be found guilty as charged in the Constitutional Court, thus rendering an immediate loss of his prime minister’s status.
However, Srettha is expected to deliver his affidavit within next week in order to defend himself in court.
CAPTION:
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, right in above photo and left in Front Page photo, and de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra. Both photos: Thai Rath
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