Thai ex-PM Thaksin to be released from prison next month

Thailand's
jailed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be released early from
prison next month, the corrections department said on Wednesday.
Thaksin,
76, has been serving a one-year prison sentence for corruption since September.
The
telecoms billionaire will be freed on May 11 and will "need to comply with
all conditions" until his probation ends, including wearing an electronic
monitor, the department said in a statement.
His age
and the fact that he had less than a year left to serve justified his early
release, it added.
Thaksin's
political clan has for two decades been a key foe of Thailand's pro-military,
pro-royalty elite who view their populist brand as a threat to the traditional
social order.
His Pheu
Thai party, and its earlier iterations, was Thailand's most successful
political party of the 21st century, with the Shinawatra family producing four
prime ministers and drawing widespread support from the rural masses.
But Pheu
Thai had its worst election result ever in February, slipping to third place
and raising questions about the future of Thaksin's political machine.
Yet Pheu
Thai's inclusion in the ruling coalition of conservative Prime Minister Anutin
Charnvirakul has left open the possibility of a political comeback.
Thaksin's
nephew and Pheu Thai's prime minister candidate, Yodchanan Wongsawat, was given
the position of minister of higher education in Anutin's cabinet.
- Reduced prison term -
Thaksin is
serving his sentence in a Bangkok prison after the Supreme Court ruled last
year that he improperly served a 2023 sentence in a hospital suite rather than
a cell.
He was
elected prime minister in 2001 and again in 2005, and took himself into exile
after his second term was cut short by a military coup.
After
returning to Thailand in August 2023, he was sentenced to eight years for
corruption and abuse of power.
But rather
than prison, he was whisked to a private room in hospital on health grounds,
his sentence was reduced to one year by royal pardon, and he was freed as part
of an early release scheme for elderly prisoners.
The timing
of his return and his medical transfer, which coincided with his Pheu Thai
party forming a new government, had fuelled public suspicion of a backroom deal
and allegations of special treatment.
The
Supreme Court ruled in September that Thaksin had not been suffering from a
critical health condition and his time spent in hospital could not count as
time served, landing him in a prison cell to serve his one-year term.
Thaksin is
one of more than 850 prisoners who were approved for early release on
Wednesday, the corrections department said.
















