Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (L) and his lawyer Winyat Chatmontree arrive at the Supreme Court in Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday ahead of a hearing to determine whether he had served a sufficient portion of a 1-year prison term handed down in 2023 before he was freed on parole. Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
Thailand’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that former prime minister and business tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra must spend 1 year in prison for conflict of interest, abuse of power and corruption convictions handed down in 2023, for which he has served zero jail time.
Justices discounted the six months he spent in a suite in the luxury wing of the Police General Hospital in Bangkok after suffering medical issues on his return from living in exile in Dubai for 15 years after being toppled from power in a 2006 military coup while visiting the United States.
Having been convicted in absentia and sentenced to eight years in prison, King Maha Vajiralongkorn responded to a request for a royal pardon from Thaksin by slashing his sentence to a year.
He was freed on parole in February 2024, fueling allegations of special treatment.
Finding his stay in the police hospital “unlawful” and that he would have come to no harm had he received outpatient treatment instead, the five-judge bench told Thaksin he must complete the 12-month sentence in full at Bangkok Remand Prison.
“The defendant benefited from remaining in the hospital without having to return to custody at Bangkok Remand Prison until his eventual release,” the court said in a statement.
Thaksin, who was ordered to surrender himself at the detention facility by the end of Tuesday, was supported in court by his two daughters and their husbands, but appeared unperturbed as the sentence was handed down.
Afterwards, he said he accepted the outcome and that he wanted to put the whole chapter behind him and that he needed to “look forward, to bring closure to everything in the past — whether legal battles or conflicts related to me.”
“From today, though I may lose my freedom, I still retain freedom of thought for the benefit of the nation and its people,” he said.
The 76-year-old, who suffers from respiratory and orthopedic conditions, vowed to commit whatever time he had left alive in the service of the monarchy and the people of Thailand.
Thaksin flew to Dubai on Thursday for a “health check-up” days before the hearing and less than a week after Thailand’s constitutional court removed Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, his daughter, from office, triggering speculation he was fleeing the country.
Analysts said taking his punishment on the nose could prove a boon to Thaksin’s political fortunes by taking the wind out of the sails of Thaksin haters.
“The industry of ‘I hate Thaksin’ that has been here for 20 years, they would have nothing to hate anymore,” said Isra Sunthornvut, head of the Thailand branch of Singapore-based government consulting firm Vriens & Partners.
Thaksin had been at loggerheads with the Thai establishment since his removal from office after his now-dissolved Thai Rak Thai party won a landslide election victory in 2005. All that changed with the advent of the Move Forward movement running on a platform of relaxing the country’s tough “lese majeste” defamation laws around the monarchy.
Move Forward was prevented from taking the reins of power after winning an election in 2023 and replaced by the Thaksin family’s alternative political vehicle, the Pheu Thai party, with its leader, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, installed as prime minister.
