Thailand’s influential former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was sent to prison yesterday after the Supreme Court ruled his hospital detention was a ploy to avoid jail, a major blow for a powerful family that has dominated politics for two decades.
The polarising billionaire had spent only a few hours in prison upon his return from 15 years of self-exile in August 2023 before he was hospitalised after complaining of heart trouble and chest pains, prompting widespread scepticism and public outrage.
His eight-year sentence for conflicts of interest and abuse of power while prime minister from 2001-2006 was commuted to one year by the king and Thaksin was released on parole after just six months of detention, the entirety of which he had spent in the VIP wing of a hospital.
The court yesterday said Thaksin must go back to serve a year in prison as both he and his doctors had intentionally prolonged his hospital stay with minor surgeries that were unnecessary.
“The defendant knew the facts or was aware the situation was not a critical emergency. The defendant only had a chronic condition that could be treated as an outpatient and did not require hospitalisation,” it said.
In images screened live on television, a van carrying Thaksin arrived at a Bangkok jail soon after a ruling that has gripped the country, the latest drama in two weeks of political chaos that saw the abrupt end of yet another Thaksin-backed populist government.
Thaksin accepted the verdict and said he had proudly served his people by raising living standards and changing the dynamic of Thailand’s democracy.
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