Ex-PM Thaksin returns to Thailand after 15 years in exile; jailed 8 years
THAILAND’S divisive ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra returned to the kingdom on Tuesday (Aug 22), after 15 years in exile, and hours before Parliament voted for a new prime minister.
He was then escorted in a police convoy to the Supreme Court, then taken to prison, where, the court said, he will serve eight years.
His jail term was for three convictions passed in his absence – one linked to his former Shin Corp company, another linked to a bank loan, and a lottery case.
His associates hope he may be moved to house arrest after a brief incarceration, although there are no guarantees.
Earlier, the billionaire landed in a private jet at Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport at 9 am (0200 GMT), and was greeted by hundreds of noisy “Red Shirt” supporters waving banners and singing songs.
Thaksin emerged briefly from the terminal building to bow and offer a floral garland at a portrait of King Maha Vajiralongkorn as a mark of respect before waving to supporters.
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The former Manchester City owner was then led away by officials to face arrest on old criminal cases, in the latest act in the kingdom’s rolling political drama.
Lawmakers later voted to install business tycoon Srettha Thavisin as prime minister at the head of a coalition led by the Pheu Thai party – the latest incarnation of Thaksin’s political movement.
A Facebook video posted by his sister Yingluck – like Thaksin, ousted from power by Thailand’s generals – showed the 74-year-old shaking hands with the crew as he boarded his jet in Singapore.
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“The day you are waiting for has finally come,” Yingluck wrote.
Crimson supporters
Thaksin has said he is prepared to face justice in order to return to his homeland and see his grandchildren – though he has long maintained the criminal charges against him are politically motivated.
“I would like to request permission to return to live on Thai soil and share the air with my fellow Thai brothers and sisters,” he posted on Twitter, which has been rebranded as X, on Monday.
At the airport, hundreds of supporters from the “Red Shirt” movement loyal to Thaksin gathered singing songs and waving banners – most decked out in their usual crimson colours.
“I am a real Red Shirt – whenever they want our support, I will always be there for them,” Karuna Wantang, 70, a retired bureaucrat from Nongkai, in the country’s northeast, told AFP.
“I don’t only like him but I love him.”
Hundreds more Red Shirts lined the route he was expected to take.
For all his long absence from the country, Thaksin remains Thailand’s most influential – and controversial – politician of modern times.
Loved by the rural poor for policies including cheap healthcare and the minimum wage, he is reviled by the pro-military and royalist elite who saw his rule as corrupt, authoritarian and a threat to Thai social order. AFP
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