Thailand’s influential former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been ordered to serve one year in prison, less than two weeks after his daughter Paetongtarn’s court-ordered removal from office.
During a hearing in Bangkok this morning, the Supreme Court ruled that the 76-year-old did not properly serve a sentence for corruption and abuse of power following his return to Thailand in 2023. Specifically, it said that Thaksin’s transfer to a police hospital, which allowed him to avoid spending even a single night in prison, was unlawful.
Following the verdict, Thaksin was led to a Department of Corrections van and transported to Bangkok Remand Prison, where he will serve the sentence. In a statement released by Thaksin’s social media team, the former leader thanked his supporters for their support over the years and said that he accepted the court’s verdict.
“I humbly accept and am ready to undergo the legal process as per today’s court order,” Thaksin said.
“From this day forward, even though I have no freedom, I still have liberty of thought for the benefit of the nation and the people,” he added. “I will maintain my strength, both physically and mentally, to use the rest of my life to serve the monarchy, Thailand, and the Thai people, in whatever capacity from now on.”
Today’s court verdict was preceded by a strange turn of events in which Thaksin suddenly left Thailand, supposedly for a medical check-up in Singapore, late last week. However, Thaksin’s private jet then flew west to Dubai, where he lived in self-exile prior to 2023. Thaksin later said that an immigration delay in Bangkok had forced him to change his travel plans and promised to return in time for the verdict, but the incident prompted speculation that he had fled the country. Thaksin returned to Bangkok last night and attended today’s hearing, dressed in a suit and royal yellow tie.
The Supreme Court case centered on the six months that Thaksin spent in hospital following his return to Thailand in August 2023, after 15 years of self-exile. The high-profile return came on the same day that his Pheu Thai party returned to office, with the support of conservative and military-backed parties, in a bid to block the progressive Move Forward Party from forming government after its victory in the May 2023 general election.
After touching down in Bangkok on August 22, Thaksin was taken into custody to begin serving an eight-year prison sentence dating back to acts allegedly committed prior to the coup that removed Thaksin from office in 2006. Almost immediately, however, he was transferred to the Police General Hospital after complaining of a variety of health complaints, including chest tightness and high blood pressure. There he remained until he received a royal pardon that cut his sentence to one year. He was then granted parole and released in February 2024, without having spent a single night in prison.
This arrangement was widely questioned at the time by Thaksin’s critics and political opponents, who pointed out his apparently healthy demeanor upon his arrival in Bangkok, and the miraculous “recovery” he seems to have made following his release. Many alleged that he was the beneficiary of special treatment under his pact with the conservative establishment, the interests of which Thailand’s highest courts have long been accused of defending.
Earlier this year, the former Democrat Party lawmaker Charnchai Issarasenarak called on the Supreme Court to investigate Thaksin’s hospitalization, alleging that he may not have truly been sick. After initially declining to take on the case, in late April, the court agreed to open an investigation.
This came at a time when the political pact between Thaksin and the conservatives was beginning to break down. The Pheu Thai government, led by Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was coming under conservative and royalist pressure over the intensifying border dispute with Cambodia. (Clearly, many conservatives found it hard to bury fully their contempt for Thaksin and their fear that he ultimately sought to usurp the power of the Thai monarchy). This eventually saw her removed from office by the Constitutional Court on August 29, around a year after the same fate befell her predecessor, Srettha Thavisin.
The verdict, which follows the defenestration of Thaksin’s daughter and the subsequent loss of power for his Pheu Thai party, represents the latest blow – and perhaps a fatal one – to the political fortunes of the billionaire former leader. Over the past two decades, Thaksin has fought an asymmetric battle with the powerful conservative establishment grouped around the Royal Thai Army and the Royal Palace.
During the course of this war, two Shinawatras have been removed from office in military coups: Thaksin in 2006 and his sister Yingluck in 2014. Since 2008, five Thaksin-aligned prime ministers, including Paetongtarn, have also been removed by the country’s politicized judiciary, which has also acted to blunt the challengers that have recently emerged to Pheu Thai’s left.
In this respect, the verdict also signals a definitive end to the political pact between the Shinawatra political machine and the royalist establishment. Whether or not Thaksin ends up serving a full year in prison, or whether the imprisonment spells an end to his considerable influence in Thai politics, it is once again clear that the “network monarchy” has set clear limits to how much influence they are happy for him to wield.
The curious thing is that Thaksin decided not to remain abroad to avoid prison, when he was already outside the country. It is possible that he did not wish to spend his remaining years in sterile self-exile in Dubai, preferring to serve his time and clear the last of the legal cases dating back to his long struggle with the royalist establishment.
“Even though all the cases against me arose after the 2006 coup d’état against my government,” Thaksin said in his statement, “today I choose to look forward and let all past events be settled – both the legal battles and any conflicts that arose from or were related to me.”