By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DE FACTO PHEU THAI boss-turned-inmate Thaksin Shinawatra might probably be assigned to teach English to fellow inmates whilst serving his one-year term in prison, Corrections Department director-general Prawut Wongsrinil confirmed today (Oct.10).
Given his old age, the father of court-deposed prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra will practically not be given any labour-intensive tasks outside Klongprem prison where he has been put behind bars since last month.
The department chief was apparently responding to speculation that the mega-billionaire/power player might probably be tasked with “supervising” his fellow inmates to clear sewer conduits in Bangkok streets.
However, the department may open an English class in the premises of Klongprem prison for the de facto Pheu Thai boss to teach his fellow inmates on a daily basis, Prawut said but declined to tell how soon he could begin to do so.
Meanwhile, Thaksin may be released on parole on grounds of good behaviour or doing good deeds in prison after he has served half of his convicted one-year term, according to the department chief.
Prawut declined to comment whether royal pardon could possibly be granted to the power player-turned-inmate on a special-case basis to the extent that he be released immediately at any given time.
The Supreme Court judges in charge of criminal lawsuits against persons in political positions had ordered for Thaksin to be returned to jail on charges of involvement in a notorious conspiracy to literally keep himself from being put behind bars at Bangkok Remand prison where he had been earlier destined to serve his curtailed, one-year term and to illicitly enjoy a privileged stay in a premium ward of Police Hospital where he had staged a six-month-long fakeout as a “critical patient” until he was released on parole early last year, following his return from self-exile abroad a couple of years ago.
Thaksin’s jail term which had been originally ordered by court to eight years and curtailed under a royal decree to only one year had been delivered in absentia of the then-globetrotter on charges of perpetrating misconduct during his previous premiership over the last couple of decades.
In what was seen as an ironic twist of Thailand’s volatile political phenomena, former army chief-turned-coup leader-turned prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha who had ousted Thaksin’s sister/former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra from power in the 2014 coup managed to bring the power player the royal decree for the substantial shortening of his jail term a few days before his nine-year rule ended in 2023.
CAPTION:
De facto Pheu Thai boss-turned-inmate Thaksin Shinawatra. Photo above – PPTVHD36, Front Page – Thai Rath
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